iv  •  •  '71 

L'lvisum  -L  J 

BT  201  . B3 7 7  1914 
Barry,  J.  G.  H.  1858-1931. 
The  self-revelation  of  Our 
Lord 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/selfrevelationof00barr_0 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 
Meditations  on  the  Apostles’  Creed,  urao, 


>531  pages . $2.00  net. 

Christian’s  Day.  A  Book  of  Meditations. 
257  pages . $1.50  net. 

Meditations  on  the  Office  and  Work  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  257  pages . $1.50  net. 


The  Self-Revelation  of 

Our  Lord. 


THE  REVEREND  J.  G.  H.  BARRY,  D.D. 


SECOND  EDITION 
Revised  and  Corrected. 


EDWIN  S.  GORHAM,  PUBLISHER 
37  EAST  28TH  ST. 

I9I4- 


0) 


Copyright 

BY 

Edwin  S.  Gorha 
1013 


To  The 

Rt.  Rev.  William  Walter  Webb,  D.D. 
Bishop  of  Milwaukee. 


My  Dear  Bishop: 

I  have  not  asked  your  permission  to  dedicate  this 
volume  to  you :  I  am  presuming  on  our  long  friend¬ 
ship,  and  your  constant  and  unfailing  kindness  of 
which  I  have  had  continuous  experience  since  our 
Seminary  days.  Your  permission  not  having  been 
asked,  you  will  be  in  nowise  responsible  for  any  of 
my  utterances.  I  have  tried  in  these  pages  to  ex¬ 
press  some  of  the  fundamental  truths  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Faith,  and  to  apply  them  in  the  light  of  an  ex¬ 
perience  now  covering  many  years.  You  will  find 
nothing  new  here.  I  have  no  novel  theories  to  put 
forth.  My  only  hope  is  that  by  the  reading  of 
these  Meditations  some  few  souls  may  be  led  to  a 
deeper  devotion  to  our  Blessed  Lord.  That  is  the 
end  of  your  work,  too :  and  in  it  I  wish  you  all  hap¬ 
piness  and  prosperity. 

I  am,  with  abiding  regard  and  affection, 

Yours,  in  our  Lord, 

J.  G.  H.  Barry. 


CONTENTS. 


I.  I  Am . i 

II.  I  Am  the  Way . 29 

III.  I  Am  the  Truth  . 55 

IV.  I  Am  the  Life . 81 

V.  I  Am  the  Living  Bread . 109 

VI.  I  Am  the  Door . 135 

VII.  I  Am  the  Good  Shepherd  ....  161 

VIII.  I  Am  the  Vine . 189 

IX.  I  Am  the  Light  of  the  World  ....  217 

X.  I  Am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life  .  .  247 

XI.  I  Am  He  That  Liveth  and  Was  Dead  .  .  273 

XII.  I  Am  Alpha  and  Omega . 303 


I  AM. 

Let  us  listen  to  the  Words  of  our  Lord — 

I  Am. 

Let  us  picture  to  ourselves — 

H  SCENE  that  most  of  us  have  witnessed 
more  than  once — the  dying  of  a  human 
being.  Here  is  one  who  has  come  to  the 
end  of  mortal  life.  He  has  always  known  that  this 
was  to  come  to  him,  that  sometime  he  should  lie 
dying,  and  yet  for  the  greater  part  of  his  existence 
he  has  managed  to  ignore  it.  He  has  put  this 
thought  of  death  away  from  him,  not  because  it 
was  a  doubtful  thing,  but  because  it  was  a  disagree¬ 
able  thing.  Even  Christians  whose  theory  it  is  that 
death  is  just  the  passing  from  mortality  unto  life, 
do  that.  But  now  the  thing  itself,  death,  is  here ;  it 
is  no  longer  possible  to  ignore  it ;  the  soul  is  actu¬ 
ally  passing  from  the  body.  It  is  going — where? 

l 


(2) 


2 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


Has  the  man  who  lies  here  any  ‘‘where”  to  go  to? 
Has  he  constructed  any  ‘‘where”  that  he  goes  to¬ 
ward  with  confidence  and  joy?  The  meaning  of 
his  life  has  been,  not  that  it  should  end  in  the  going 
forth  of  his  soul  to  conditions  unknown  and  inde- 
termined,  but  that  he  should  live  on  under  condi¬ 
tions  that  he  has  himself,  in  a  way  created.  There 
is  no  uncertainty  about  death — it  comes.  There  is 
no  uncertainty  about  the  state  of  the  soul  after 
death ;  it  will  be  what  it  was  before.  W e  may  not  be 
able  to  read  all  the  indications,  but  the  man  himself 
knows  what,  for  the  future,  he  has  laid  hold  on; 
what  of  sustaining  faith  he  has  to  support  him  in 
this  hour.  He  is  going  out  under  conditions  that 
he  himself  has  controlled.  What  he  will  meet,  is 
what  he  has  prepared  himself  to  meet. 

Consider,  first — 

l 

That  the  thing  that  gives  certainty  to  the  future 
and  removes  all  fear  and  terror  from  the  dying  of 
any  man,  is  the  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ.  Blot  out 
that  teaching  from  the  human  consciousness,  and 
what  have  you  left  ?  Do  all  the  philosophic  lectures 
that  strive  to  establish  a  possibility  or  probability  of 
survival  of  death  by  the  human  soul  give  you  any 
comfort?  Do  all  the  experimental  investigations  of 
Psychical  Research,  the  alleged  recalling  of  the  dead 
to  write  or  speak  platitudes  or  nonsense  through 


1  AM 


3 


mediums,  console  you  as  to  the  future?  All  the 
talk  of  the  probability  of  a  blessed  and  happy  future 
that  people  who  do  not  believe  in  Christianity  in¬ 
dulge  in,  what  is  it  other  than  poetic  optimism? 
What  really  gives  a  note  of  hopefulness  to  the 
speculations  of  non-Christians  is  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  Christ  that  lingers,  as  the  echo  lingers  after 
the  voice  that  produced  it  is  silent,  where  belief  in 
Jesus  himself  has  died — lingers,  because  of  all  his 
teaching  that  is  the  one  thing  that  men  would  cling 
to,  that  they  do  not  perish  in  the  grave.  But  there 
is  a  vast  practical  difference  between  the  hope  of 
immortality  and  the  certainty  of  it.  There  is  end¬ 
less  distance,  as  affects  life,  between  the  speculation 
that  we  may  survive  death,  and  the  certainty  that 
we  shall  not  only  survive,  but  that  the  nature  of  our 
future  is  determined  by  the  nature  of  our  past.  It 
is  the  difference  between  those  early  voyagers  who 
set  out  to  discover  unknown  lands  and  most  likely 
perished  at  the  end  of  a  successful  quest,  because 
they  were  ignorant  of  the  preparations  needful  to 
meet  the  condition  of  life  the  new  land  offered,  and 
the  modern  traveller  who,  even  when  exploring  un¬ 
known  lands  knows  before  he  starts  the  conditions 
for  which  he  must  prepare.  We  go  out  on  no  un¬ 
known  quest,  for  we  have  the  teaching  of  Christ  to  • 
guide  us,  and  shall  have  the  Presence  of  Christ  to-* 
meet  and  sustain  us. 


4 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


Consider f  second — 

The  calm  security  with  which  the  saint  faces 
death  is  due  to  his  conviction  that  our  Lord  is  a  liv¬ 
ing  Saviour  on  whom  he  may  confidently  lean  in 
this,  his  last  earthly  hour.  That  is,  our  confidence  in 
death  rests  in  our  belief  in  the  Godhead  of  our 
Lord.  It  is  not  simply  that  he  has  told  us  of  the 
issues  of  death  and  we  believe  him ;  it  is  not  simply 
that  he  has  gone  before  us  in  the  path  that  we  must 
tread,  and  awaits  to  meet  us  at  its  end ;  but  that  by 
his  divine  power  he  sustains  us  in  that  path,  and 
awaits  us  to  reveal  himself  more  completely.  Blot 
out  our  Lord’s  divinity  and  you  have  by  that  act 
blotted  out  the  authority  of  his  teaching  and  his 
power  to  help.  We  find  it  possible  to  rely  on  him 
in  the  supreme  crisis,  when  all  the  accustomed  helps 
fail  us,  when  the  earth  fades  from  our  sight  and  the 
support  of  human  hands  is  broken,  because  we  have 
experienced  him  as  Divine.  That  calm  assertion  of 
his  Godhead,  I  am ;  I,  amid  a  world  the  fashion  of 
which  changes  and  whose  form  perishes,  I  am,  I, 
eternal,  unchangeable,  the  same,  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  forever;  that  is  the  foundation  on  which  I  can 
rest  my  life.  All  the  interpretations  of  Jesus  turn 
out  empty  illusions,  powerless  to  affect  life,  except 
that  which  declares  him  God  of  God,  Light  of 
Light,  Very  God  of  Very  God.  Let  us  rest  a  mo- 


I  AM 


5 


ment  in  that  thought,  prostrating  our  souls  before 
him  and  worshipping  him  who  is  at  once  “God  of 
the  substance  of  his  Father  begotten  before  the 
world,  and  man  of  the  substance  of  his  mother, 
born  in  the  world.”  Because  he  is  this,  he  can  take 
us  through  death. 

Let  us,  then,  pray — 

For  a  clearer  apprehension  of  his  Godhead. 
Pray,  that  faith  in  that  Godhead  may  never  fail  us. 
Pray  that  it  may  sustain  us  in  the  hour  of  our  death. 

May  the  Infinite  and  Ineffable  Trinity,  the 
Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  direct  our  life 
in  good  works,  and  after  our  passage  through  this 
world  vouchsafe  to  us  eternal  rest  with  the  right¬ 
eous.  Grant  this,  O  Eternal  and  Almighty  God, 
through  Thy  Divine  Son,  Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord. 

•  •••#•  • 

As  we  read  our  Gospels  we  cannot  help  but  notice 
that  there  is  in  our  Lord’s  assertions  about  Himself 
the  claim  to  a  power  and  knowledge  that  is  more 
than  human.  Again  and  again  his  words  assume 
that  he  is  in  the  possession  of  the  powers  of  the 
Godhead.  And  often  when  this  assumption  is  not 
expressed  in  words  we  perceive  it  as  being  neces¬ 
sarily  involved  in  what  he  says  and  does.  It  is  not 
that  he  does  “mighty  works” ;  we  have  ceased  to 
look  on  miracles  as  the  characteristic  expression  of 


6 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


divinity ;  it  is  rather  that  his  self-consciousness  is 
that  of  one  perfectly  united  to  God.  After  we  have 
studied  our  Lord’s  words  with  sufficient  clearness 
to  have  become  familiar  with  his  forms  of  self-ex¬ 
pression,  we  are  not  surprised  to  hear  him  say,  “I 
and  my  Father  are  one.”  The  acute  ears  of  Jew¬ 
ish  critics  caught  the  meaning  of  his  self-assertion 
and  had  no  doubt  that  “he  being  man  made  himself 
equal  to  God.’’  Their  charge  of  blasphemy  was 
perfectly  well  grounded  unless  we  are  able  to  take 
the  point  of  view  which  they  declined,  that  his  self- 
assertion  was  true.  This  man  rests  on  God  in  a 
special  way  which  is  quite  different  from  the  way 
in  which  the  great  Prophets  had  rested  on  him. 
Their  relation  to  God  was  a  relation  of  faith :  Jesus* 
relation  to  God  is  a  relation  of  identity.  Apolo¬ 
gists  used  to  quote  this  or  that  text  of  the  New 
Testament  in  proof  of  our  Lord’s  divinity.  But  we 
have  learned  that  such  a  method  is  altogether  too 
narrow  and  mechanical  a  way  of  treating  the  fact. 
The  true  ground  that  we  find  in  the  gospels  for 
holding  that  our  Lord  is  divine  is  not  an  act  or  ex¬ 
pression  here  and  there  which  seems  almost  acci¬ 
dentally  to  reveal  a  secret  that  he  is  carefully  keep¬ 
ing*  but  the  very  nature  of  his  self-consciousness 
which  is  the  self-consciousness  of  God.  When  his 
teaching  compels  him  to  self-assertion,  it  is  the  self- 
assertion  of  God. 


I  AM 


7 


The  characteristic  form  of  this  self-assertion  is 
found  in  these  sayings  that  I  am  asking  you  to  med¬ 
itate  upon — these  “I  ams”  of  our  Lord,  as  they 
have  been  called.  They  are  passages  of  self-defini¬ 
tion,  and  such  “I  am”  is  the  assumption  of  divine 
attributes.  If  we  make  the  attempt  to  construe  them 
as  the  assertions  of  a  man  they  become  absurd  or, 
as  the  Jews  thought  them  blasphemous.  There  is 
no  sense  in  which  one  who  is  merely  man  can  say: 
“I  am  the  Living  Bread  that  came  down  from  hea¬ 
ven;  if  a  man  eat  of  this  Bread  he  shall  live  for¬ 
ever.”  Still  more  difficult  to  make  anything  of  is 
such  a  saying  as  this:  “I  am  the  Resurrection  and 
the  Life.”  We  have  only  to  put  one  of  these  say¬ 
ings  into  the  mouth  of,  say,  St.  Paul,  and  imagine 
him  saying  to  his  disciples,  “I  am  the  Good  Shep¬ 
herd;  the  Good  Shepherd  giveth  his  life  for  his 
sheep,”  to  understand  the  uniqueness  of  the  person¬ 
ality  that  can  make  use  of  such  words  in  relation  to 
himself.  And  in  this  saying  that  we  are  presently 
concerned  with,  “I  am”, — “before  Abraham  was,  I 
am” — there  is  the  ring  of  divinity — or  insanity. 

In  the  Incarnation  there  is  a  hiding  of  the  divine 
power.  But  it  cannot  be  hid  always;  there  are 
times  when  it  will  break  forth.  Our  Lord  acts 
through  the  humanity  which  he  has  assumed,  keep¬ 
ing  in  check,  if  one  may  use  such  an  expression,  so 
much  of  his  divinity  as  human  nature  will  not  me  ji- 


8  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

ate.  The  humanity  is  a  medium  of  transmission  up 
to  a  certain  point ;  but  beyond  that  it  ceases  to  be  a 
fit  instrument  for  the  divine.  What  the  “certain 
point”  is,  we  are  not  competent  to  say.  Our  Lord’s 
divinity  sustains  and  vivifies  his  humanity  which  by 
its  union  with  his  person  is  thus  brought  into  con¬ 
tact  with  the  source  of  spiritual  life.  But  when  it 
comes  to  his  teaching,  to  his  authority,  the  divine 
shines  out.  In  his  miracles  there  is  no  necessary 
expression  of  the  divine  power ;  but  in  his  teaching 
he  goes  beyond  man  and  teaches  as  man  never 
taught.  It  is  teaching  that  is  mediated  through  the 
humanity ;  but  it  is  beyond  the  power  of  humanity 
to  originate,  it  implies  an  extra-human  experience, 
the  experience  of  God.  His  teaching  has  not  the 
accent  of  philosophical  speculation,  inferences  as  to 
the  mind  of  God  ;  but  is  the  assertion  of  direct,  self- 
originated  knowledge, — the  knowledge  of  one  who 
speaks,  not  from  God,  but  as  God.  There  is  no 
shade  of  suspicion  in  him  that  his  words  are  less 
than  final  and  complete  truth.  There  is  in  his 
words  no,  “I  think,”  “I  infer,”  “I  conclude,”  ‘T  be¬ 
lieve’’  ;  it  is  always  the  direct  and  simple  affirma¬ 
tion  of  truth  that  admits  of  no  doubt.  The  wood¬ 
land  may  be  as  dense  as  you  please,  the  path  you 
wander  through  on  a  Summer  morning  may  have 
all  the  qualities  of  twilight,  the  closely  woven 
branches  of  the  pine  shutting  \out  the  sun.  But 


I  AM 


9 


there  will  always  be  places  where  the  weaving  is 
thin,  where  the  light  filters  through  and  forms  danc¬ 
ing  nets  of  gold  on  the  brown  needles  of  the  pine 
that  strew  the  paths.  So  these  sayings  of  our  Lord 
— they  are  revealing  lights  breaking  through  the 
twilight  of  humanity  and  manifesting  the  divine 
presence.  In  them  we  see  God. 

“Before  Abraham  was,  I  am  he  declares  his 
timelessness,  his  eternal  existence,  his  essential  di¬ 
vinity;  that  divinity  that  his  beloved  disciple  sets 
out  in  the  prologue  of  his  Gospel,  that  those  who 
read  might  approach  the  narrative  that  follows 
with  adequate  understanding  of  the  person  whose 
life  he  was  to  tell ;  “In  the  beginning  was  the  Word, 
and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was 
God.”  There  are  those  who  tell  us  that  such  ques¬ 
tions  are  unimportant  and  only  perplex  us.  That 
it  is  enough  that  our  Lord  taught  us  of  the  Father 
and  set  us  an  example  that  we  might  follow  him. 
But  before  I  can  accept  any  man’s  example  as  con¬ 
straining  to  my  life,  I  need  to  know  his  right,  his 
authority,  to  make  himself  an  example  at  all.  An 
example  that  appeals  to  me  is  one  thing,  an  authori¬ 
tative  example  is  another.  But  this,  it  is  replied,  is 
an  example  which  we  all  recognize  as  embodying  the 
highest  and  best  that  humanity  knows.  All  men 
feel  its  constraining  power  and  that  power  is  not  in¬ 
creased,  but  the  simplicity  of  its  appeal  is  detracted 


IO 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


from,  by  complicating  it  with  questions  that  con¬ 
cern  the  nature  of  Christ’s  person.  All  men  are  not 
able  to  believe  the  divinity  of  his  person,  but  all 
men  feel  the  perfectness  of  his  example.  Why  hin¬ 
der  them  in  following  the  one,  by  imposing  on  them 
beliefs  in  regard  to  the  other? 

To  which  this  is  the  plain  answer;  that  it  is  not 
true  that  all  men  feel  the  beauty  of  Christ’s  exam¬ 
ple  and  are  constrained  to  follow  it;  that  they 
recognize  his  teaching,  considered  as  the  teaching 
of  a  pure  and  holy  man,  as  the  perfect  guide  of  life. 
That  teaching  is  being  increasingly  repudiated  to¬ 
day;  and  repudiated,  not  as  it  always  has  been,  by 
those  who  prefer  a  life  of  sin  and  throw  off  the  re¬ 
straint  of  the  Gospel  without  denying  its  perfect¬ 
ness  ;  but  by  those  who  explicitly  deny  its  perfect¬ 
ness,  its  suitability  to  man  in  our  time,  its  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  best  that  humanity  is  capable  of.  The 
denial  of  the  divinity  of  our  Lord,  coupled  with  the 
assertion  of  the  sufficiency  and  binding  character  of 
his  human  example,  so  far  from  removing  stum¬ 
bling  blocks  from  men’s  ways  and  making  it  easy 
for  them  to  unite  on  a  program  of  right  living, 
has  resulted  in  the  repudiation  of  the  authoritative 
character  of  Christian  morals,  and  the  perfection 
of  the  human  life  of  our  Lord.  After  a  period  of 
theological  chaos  during  which  men  have  consoled 
themselves  by  saying  that  after  all  it  did  not  mat- 


ter  how  confused  and  contradictory  our  beliefs 
might  be,  because  we  were  all,  in  any  case,  agreed 
on  the  meaning  of  a  right  life,  and  that  his  creed 
could  not  really  be  wrong  whose  life  is  in  the  right; 
we  have  entered  upon  a  period  of  moral  chaos  in 
which  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong 
tends  to  lose  all  meaning.  A  man’s  morals  to-day 
are  regarded  as  what  we  were  told  in  the  last  gen¬ 
eration  his  theology  was,  his  private  affair.  Not 
long  ago  a  man  declined  to  give  up  his  mistress  at 
my  urging,  not  on  the  ground  that  he  could  not 
break  away  from  sin,  but  on  the  ground  that  the 
relation  was  a  perfectly  legitimate  one  and  his  own 
private  business,  with  which  the  Church,  whose 
absolution  he  was  seeking,  had  no  right  to  inter¬ 
fere.  This  attitude  is  typical;  and  we  have  not  to 
read  very  far  in  modern  literature  to  find  it  wide¬ 
spread.  Why  should  we,  indeed,  submit  to  have 
all  our  lives  regulated,  and  our  business  and  our 
pleasure  interfered  with,  by  the  teaching  of  a  man 
who  lived  in  Palestine  some  centuries  ago? 

The  pressing  question  is  not :  Did  our  Lord  teach 
a  theology  ?  but,  had  he  authority  to  teach  anything 
whatsoever?  Has  his  word  any  binding  force?  Is 
the  twentieth  century,  which  respects  nothing  else, 
bound  to  respect  the  ideals  of  life  which  are  em¬ 
bodied  in  the  teaching  and  living  of  Jesus?  I  do 
not  know  what  answer  those  who  have  been  con- 


12 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


ducting  an  anti-theological  campaign  in  the  interest 
of  what  they  call  “religion”  may  have  to  give ;  but 
whatever  their  answer  may  be,  it  is  clearly  not  im¬ 
pressing  the  world,  which  drifts  on  to  ever  more 
explicit  repudiation  of  moral  restraint.  The  only  ef¬ 
fective  barrier  to  the  incoming  flood  of  a  moralism 
seems  to  be  the  reassertion  of  our  Lord’s  author¬ 
ity  to  teach,  based  on  the  assertion  of  his  divinity. 
Why  accept  Christ’s  teaching?  Because  he  speaks 
with  the  authority  of  God, — of  a  God  before  whose 
judgment  seat  we  shall  all  one  day  have  to  stand. 
Others  have  spoken  persuasive  words  out  of  their 
own  deep  spiritual  experience  of  God;  but  he 
alone  speaks  from  “the  Bosom  of  the  Father.’' 
“The  Only  Begotten  Son  who  is  in  the  Bosom  of 
the  Father,”  he  has  declared  “The  Father  and  the 
Father’s  will.”  He  can  declare  the  mind  and  will 
of  God  with  complete  authority  because  in  doing 
so  he  is  declaring  his  own  mind  and  will.  His 
word  is  final. 

It  is  because  of  our  Lord’s  divinity,  then,  that  we 
have  confidence  in  his  word.  We  read  our  Gos¬ 
pels  in  a  mood  that  differs  entirely  from  that  in 
which  we  read  any  other  book  of  spiritual  teaching. 
We  read  the  books  of  to-day  that  are  devoted  to  the 
exposition  of  the  Christian  life  with  a  constant,  it 
may  be  half  unconscious,  reference  of  their  teach¬ 
ing  to  the  teaching  of  our  Lord.  No  other  book  is 


i  AM 


*3 


final  for  us.  No  other  book,  therefore,  can  take 
the  place  in  our  spiritual  training  of  the  Gospel. 
And  his  authority  extends  to  his  work;  in  that,  too, 
we  find  an  expression  of  his  mind.  If  we  learn 
spiritual  truth  from  the  parable  we  learn  it  not  less 
from  the  miracle  which  is  an  embodiment  of  teach¬ 
ing,  a  parable  in  action.  Indeed,  looking  at  his 
work,  meaning  by  that,  not  this  or  that  act,  but  the 
whole  process  of  his  living  and  dying — his  Incar¬ 
nation,  his  Atoning  death,  his  Resurrection,  Ascen¬ 
sion,  Session — we  see  that  what  he  says  (his  teach¬ 
ing  in  a  narrow  sense)  is  strictly  dependent  for  its 
significance  and  power  upon  what  he  does.  His 
word  may,  and  doubtless  does,  take  us  farther  into 
the  heart  of  reality  than  that  of  any  other  teacher. 
But  even  that  word  is  powerless  apart  from  his 
work.  It  has  the  same  sort  of  powerlessness  as  the 
word  of  any  other  teacher.  We  need  to  persuade 
ourselves  of  the  powerlessness  of  knowledge.  It 
has  been  the  ideal  of  the  rationalistic  education  to 
which  we  have  been  subjected  that  “knowledge  is 
power,”  that  the  training  of  the  intellectual  part 
of  our  nature  is  all-sufficient  to  fit  us  to  meet  the 
problems  of  life.  We  have  only  to  open  our  eyes 
to  the  facts  of  experience  to  know  that  that  is  not 
true.  How  many  men  do  we  know  who  have 
knowledge,  but  not  wisdom — who  are  notably  un¬ 
wise  in  dealing  with  the  problems  of  life.  There 


14-  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

arc  constant  examples  of  men  whose  knowledge  we 
should  not  dispute,  who  are  incompetent  to  deal 
with  the  problems  of  family  life, — who  cannot  suc¬ 
ceed  in  the  discipline  and  training  of  a  child.  The 
higher  education  does  not  exempt  men  and  women 
from  the  assaults  of  passion,  or  render  them  im¬ 
mune  to  pride  and  covetousness.  The  accumula¬ 
tion  of  knowledge  seems  in  no  degree  to  teach  the 
art  of  living  a  successful  social  life,  to  say  noth¬ 
ing  of  a  life  of  righteousness.  There  is  evidently 
something  vital  lacking  to  knowledge  as  a  guide  to 
life.  What  is  that  something?  Just  what  know¬ 
ledge,  proverbially  is  and  actually  is  not — power.  It 
is  power  that  we  want  and  must  in  somewise  get  in 
independence  of  knowledge — from  some  other 
source.  And  it  is  not  even  our  Lprd’s  teaching , 
which  no  doubt  gives  us  knowledge,  that  can  sup¬ 
ply  the  power.  His  teaching  succeeds  in  setting 
before  us  a  higher  example  than  any  other  teaching, 
in  putting  us  under  the  pressure  of  a  higher  ideal — ■ 
but  what  then?  Why,  we  find  ourselves  confront¬ 
ed  with  an  impossible  theory  of  life.  There  is 
nothing  in  knowledge  that  can  enable  it  to  lay  hold 
upon,  and  vivify  nature,  and  develop  it  to  a  higher 
capacity  of  action. 

Are  we  hopeless,  then,  in  the  presence  of  high 
ideals  of  Christian  living?  Are  we  to  find  the  life 
of  Christ  a  discouragement  rather  than  stimulus? 


I  AM 


15 


Surely  there  is  that  danger  unless  we  can  find  in 
our  Lord,  not  only  an  example  of  a  godly  life,  but 
also  the  source  of  it.  It  is  his  work  in  becoming 
one  with  us,  and  thus  giving  life  to  us,  that  inspires 
our  hope.  “To  them  gave  he  the  right  to  become 
the  sons  of  God” — a  right  which  is  exercised,  not 
by  some  more  or  less  feeble  imitation  of  moral  qual¬ 
ities,  but  in  that  self-surrender  to  his  Incarnate 
action  which  results  in  our  Regeneration  and  Sanc¬ 
tification.  We  do  not  grow  up,  out  of  him,  imita¬ 
ting  him ;  but  we  grow  up,  in  him,  expressing  him. 
“As  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  they  are 
the  sons  of  God” ;  as  many,  that  is,  as  are  respon¬ 
sive  to  the  motions  to  the  spiritual  life,  as  distin¬ 
guished  from  those  who  respond  to  the  motives  of 
the  world.  It  is  they  who  lay  hold  upon  the  eter¬ 
nal  life,  imperishable  things  which  are  the  inherit¬ 
ance  of  God’s  children. 

One  of  the  distinguishing  marks  of  sanctity  is 
that  it  seeks  for  stability  of  life,  trying  to  get  be¬ 
yond  the  temporality  “of  the  things  that  are  seen,” 
to  the  eternity  of  the  “things  that  are  not  seen.’’ 
Such  stability  it  finds  when  it  discovers  the  re¬ 
sources  of  the  sonship  which  belongs  to  those  who 
are  in  union  with  God.  Herein  is  found  a  relation 
which  is  permanent,  and  upon  which  we  may  build 
for  eternity.  The  possible  acquisitions  of  charac¬ 
ter,  as  we  build  it  up  in  this  world,  fall  easily  into 


1 6  the  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

two  classes ;  those  which  are  so  related  to  and  so  de¬ 
pendent  upon  the  things  of  time  that  they  must  per¬ 
ish  with  them ;  and  those  which  have  deeper  roots 
and  are  so  related  to  ultimate  spiritual  reality  that 
they  will  persist  while  the  Spirit  persists.  There 
is  no  permanency  in  material  acquisitions  and  the 
pleasures  that  grow  out  of  them.  There  is  no  per¬ 
manency  in  such  ambitions  as  are  gratified  by  the 
possession  of  worldly  power  and  influence.  There 
is  no  permanency  in  a  friendship  growing  out  of  a 
community  of  temporal  interests,  or  in  a  love  which 
is  the  product  of  sensual  desires.  Any  human  in¬ 
terests  to  have  permanency  must  be  capable  of  being, 
and  must  actually  be,  lifted  to  the  level  of  spiritual 
action  and  transformed  by  drawing  their  life  and 
energy  from  God.  Such  qualities  as  our  Lord  ex¬ 
emplifies  in  his  own  life  and  makes  the  substance 
of  his  teaching  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount;  such 
qualities  as  St.  Paul  teaches  to  be  the  fruits  of  the 
Spirit ; — these  are  permanent  and  undying.  In  this 
world  we  can  love  and  use  material  things,  we  can 
be  absorbed  in  earthly  affections,  we  can  saturate 
our  senses  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  gifts  life  so 
richly  brings ;  and  in  great  measure  we  can  do  this 
in  helpful  and  innocent  ways ;  in  great  measure  we 
are  obliged  to  do  some  of  these  by  the  very  condi¬ 
tion  of  our  life.  But  we  can,  and  if  we  seek  an¬ 
other  life  must,  sit  loose  to  such  joys  and  occupa- 


I  AM 


17 


tions,  realizing  their  purely  transitory  nature  and 
the  spiritual  danger  of  limiting  ourselves  to  them. 
They  shift  and  change  and  pass,  as  the  rolling 
clouds  of  the  summer  sky  build  themselves  into 
fantastic  imitations  of  mountain  ranges,  battle* 
mented  walls  and  towering  castles,  and  then  melt 
into  the  infinite  blue  of  the  placid  sky  leaving  but 
a  memory  behind.  But  there  are  other  qualities  of 
life  which  are  stable  and  undying  and  only  deepen 
with  the  flight  of  the  eternal  years.  There  is  no 
world  conceivable  where  the  qualities  of  purity,  of 
righteousness,  of  love  can  be  meaningless  and  want 
their  exercise;  there  is  no  lapse  of  time  that  can 
render  them  outgrown.  And  that  because  they 
are  deep-rooted  in  the  nature  of  the  spirit,  are  per¬ 
manent  modes  of  the  spirit’s  self-expression,  are 
ultimately  the  expression  of  the  life  of  God  through 
the  life  of  the  spirit. 

It  is  our  Lord’s  eternity,  his  essential  divinity, 
which  assures  us  of  the  permanency  of  the  relations 
that  we  establish  with  him.  Because  he  is,  we  are, 
and  shall  be.  ‘‘Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also.*' 
No  teaching,  no  example,  can  establish  permanent 
relations  with  God,  we  attain  stability  in  him. 
Apart  from  his  divine  authority  how  can  we  so 
much  as  know  that  we  survive  death?  or  how  can 
we  know  that  we  pass  out  of  death,  admitting  that 
we  survive  it,  into  a  stable  state?  How  can  we 

(3) 


1 8  the  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

know  that  at  death  we  are  not  beginning  one  stage 
more  in  an  endless  round  of  unstable  existences? 
People  outside  of  Christianity,  and  without  any 
definite  religion,  make  constantly  the  assumption  of 
an  endless  and  happy  immortality  as  before  them; 
that,  however  difficult  and  pain-stricken  this 
world  may  be,  they  will  speedily  reach  another 
world  which  is  immeasurably  better.  This  assump¬ 
tion  would  seem  to  rest  on  very  slight  foundation. 
Even  admitting  that  the  practically  universal  hu¬ 
man  belief  in  immortality  is  a  thing  we  may  trust 
to,  it  tells  us  nothing  of  the  nature  of  that  immor¬ 
tality.  The  assumption  that  it  must  be  what  we 
would  like  it  to  be  is  puerile.  Laying  aside  the 
knowledge  of  the  future  that  comes  to  us  through 
the  revelation  which  is  the  outcome  of  the  life  of 
Christ, — what  ground  is  there  for  assuming  that 
the  future  for  the  human  being  is  anything  more 
than  a  new  “setting  out  upon  his  travels,”  under 
changed  conditions,  to  be  sure,  but  why  infallibly 
changed  for  the  better?  Or  why  not  a  re-entrance 
into  this  world  to  take  up  once  more  the  weary 
burden  of  life?  Out  of  Christ,  I  see  no  certainty  of 
rest  or  peace;  and  there  is  nothing  that  could  be 
more  disheartening  than  to  think  of  oneself  as  im¬ 
mortal  with  an  immortality  that  is  ever  restless, 
that  reaches  stability  nowhere.  It  would  seem  to 
be  just  because  of  the  horror  of  that  thought  that 


I  AM 


*9 


the  Buddhist  thinks  with  joy  of  a  final  state  in 
which  all  consciousness  of  individual  existence 
shall  be  lost  forever.  It  is  the  splendor  of  the 
Christian  revelation  that  it  has  relieved  us  of  that 
“horror  of  great  darkness/’  the  horror  of  being 
thrown  out  as  homeless  wanderers  into  the  un¬ 
known.  ‘‘I  am” ;  that  is  the  word  of  peace  and  se¬ 
curity.  ‘‘Because  thou  art,  O,  Jesus,  I  am,  and 
shall  be.’’  I  do  not  go  out  into  a  dark  and  silent 
unknown,  but  to  a  land  of  Promise.  “Where  I  am, 
there  shall  my  servant  be.”  I  can  rest  on  that. 

It  is  belief  in  the  divinity  of  our  Lord  that  en¬ 
ables  us  to  bear  the  imperfection  of  our  present  con¬ 
dition.  We,  “endure  as  seeing  him  that  is  invisi¬ 
ble.”  The  imperfections  and  maladjustments  that 
are  so  evident  in  the  present  order  would  be  intol¬ 
erable  if  it  were  not  that  our  confidence  in  our 
Lord  brought  us  the  certainty  that  they  are  phen¬ 
omena  in  an  order  that  is  being  guided  and  over- 

» 

ruled  by  supreme  wisdom  working  to  ends  we  are 
presently  unable  to  comprehend.  If  we  had  but 
one  brief  period  of  the  world’s  existence  from 
which  to  study  the  evolution  of  life  on  this  globe 
we  could  make  nothing  of  it.  It  was  not  until  geo¬ 
logy  unrolled  the  life-story  of  the  earth  that  we 
could  begin  to  understand  the  meaning — the  origin 
— of  present  forms  of  life.  Now,  if  there  is  still 
much  that  we  do  not  understand,  we  are  able  to 


20 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


grasp  the  march  of  the  evolutionary  process  of  the 
world  and  life  as  a  stupendous  whole,  marvelous 
in  its  complexity,  yet  moving  on  from  stage  to  stage 
as  though  to  an  end  foreseen.  It  is  in  the  light  that 
our  Lord’s  entrance  into  human  life  has  thrown  up¬ 
on  the  meaning  of  human  existence  in  relation  to 
God,  that  we  are  enabled  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  a 
spiritual  evolution  going  on,  of  which  we  and  the 
world  in  which  we  live  form  one  small  section.  We 
are  revealed  as  being  a  part  of  some  inconceivably 
great  spiritual  process,  and  we  are  warned  by  the 
history  of  human  speculation  upon  the  life-history 
of  the  earth  not  to  assume  that  we  can  read  the 
meaning  of  God’s  whole  purpose  from  the  phen¬ 
omena  of  the  fraction  of  it  with  which  we  are  in 
some  degree  familiar.  Fragments  of  the  purpose 
are  revealed  to  us,  our  own  duty  in  the  present  is 
made  sufficiently  known  to  guide  our  action,  but  of 
the  place  in  the  entire  purpose  of  God  that  such 
phenomena  as  pain  and  sin  and  love  occupy,  we  are 
“no  fit  judges.”  The  only  inference  we  dare 
make  is,  that  knowing  God  as  revealed  in  Christ, 
we  may  be  confident  that  all  things  are  working  ac¬ 
cording  to  his  good  will  to  an  ultimate  realization 
of  good.  It  is  perhaps  safe  for  us  to  think  of  our¬ 
selves  as  in  a  relatively  early  stage  in  the  spiritual 
evolution  of  man.  When  we  have  in  mind  the  un¬ 
numbered  years  of  man’s  physical  evolution,  that 


I  AM 


21 


time  during  which  he  has  been  in  the  possession  of 
spiritual  ideals  and  seeking  to  assimilate  them 
seems  brief.  And  shall  it  take  less  time  to  work 
out  a  world-order  dominated  by  the  Spirit,  than  it 
took  to  elevate  the  animal  to  the  perception  of  the 
spiritual?  There  is  no  need  that  we  should  be  dis¬ 
couraged  or  disheartened  or  driven  to  pessimism 
and  unbelief  by  the  pressure  of  the  sin  and  imperfec¬ 
tion  that  we  see.  For  amid  it  all  we  do  see  clearly  one 
phenomenon  which  outweighs  all  the  rest — we  see 
God  in  Christ  working  for  the  redemption  of  the 
world.  We  are  bewildered  by  the  shifting  and 
contradictory  phenomena  of  life,  but  we  are  sure  of 
the  character  of  God.  When  we  see  some  great 
statesman  dealing  with  problems  of  government  of 
which  we  are  unable  to  see  the  solution  we  confide 
in  the  wisdom  or  goodness  of  the  man  whom  we 
know  as  the  justification  of  the  means  he  is  using, 
though  we  are  unable  to  see  how  they  can  work  his 
end.  In  the  last  analysis  we  are  obliged  to  trust 
to  the  character  of  our  fellows  as  the  justification 
of  their  acts.  And  we  are  obliged  to  trust,  and  are 
right  in  our  trust,  in  the  character  of  God  as  a  jus¬ 
tification  of  the  world  as  it  is.  That  we  see  Jesus 
is  for  us  enough.  Far  from  us  be  that  pessimistic 
criticism  of  the  world-order  which  refuses  faith  in 
God  and  loyal  seivice  to  him  because  we  are  una¬ 
ble  to  see  the  justice  or  the  goodness  of  much  that 


*2  THE  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

takes  place  here.  There  is,  indeed,  much  in  the 
world  that  it  is  hard  for  a  thoughtful  man  to  bear ; 
much  that  weighs  upon  his  heart  and  drains  his 
sympathies.  We  often  feel  as  a  reproach  our  own 
success  or  happiness  and  peace.  We  often  ask 
ourselves  how,  if  we  really  care  for  others,  we  can 
endure  to  be  happy.  But  beyond  that  is  our  cer¬ 
tainty  that  God  is  righteous  and  that  all  things  in 
some  inconceivable  way  work  together  for  good. 
“I  am,”  our  Lord  says;  and  in  the  faith  of  his  di¬ 
vinity  we  rest  secure.  “God  is  love,”  St.  John  tells 
us,  and  we  need  not  to  have  been  told,  for  we  have 
seen  him  revealed  in  the  human  life  of  our  Lord. 
“Clouds  and  darkness”  may  be  for  the  present 
round  about  him  in  the  working  of  his  will  and 
purpose;  but  in  some  far-off  eventide  there  will  be 
light. 

In  the  meantime  the  mission  is  upon  us  to  asso¬ 
ciate  ourselves  with  our  Lord  in  the  work  of  spirit¬ 
ualizing  the  world.  Through  us,  because  we  have 
been  made  one  with  him,  and  given  the  power  that 
resides  in  sonship,  there  is  a  release  of  spiritual 
power.  We  are  vital  centers  of  the  energies  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  through  which  its  power  goes  out 
to  the  world.  That  power  manifests  itself  in  us  in 
many  ways  according  to  our  individual  vocations 
and  capacities.  It  manifests  itself  first  of  all  in  us 
by  the  transfiguration  of  our  desires.  The  life  of 


I  AM 


23 


God’s  children  is  most  evident  as  a  life  of  changing 
desires.  As  we  follow  that  life  step  by  step  in  its 
development,  we  see  the  cruel  and  animal  selfish¬ 
ness  of  youth  giving  way  to  the  matured  unselfish¬ 
ness  of  spiritual  principle.  There  is  nothing  more 
pathetic  than  youth  under  the  domination  of  restless, 
uncontrolled  passion,  heedless  of  any  appeal  of  spir¬ 
itual  things.  The  language  of' the  Spirit  is  for  the 
present  an  unknown  tongue.  One  recalls  young 
men  and  women  in  whom  the  drive  of  the  passions 
seems  so  uncontrollable,  that  we  can  only  under¬ 
stand  them  through  the  hypothesis  of  a  possessed 
personality — a  personality  dominated  by  demoniac 
power.  Yet  one  sees,  too,  that  personality  checked, 
controlled,  mastered,  by  the  quiet,  insistent,  un¬ 
yielding  pressure  of  spiritual  principle.  One  sees 
the  character  transformed  and  moulded  into  the 
matured  strength  of  the  servant  of  God.  And  we 
feel  that  the  spiritual  power  brought  to  bear  on 
that  soul  is  in  large  measure  brought  to  bear 
through  other  human  personalities ;  that  the  power 
of  God  is  mediated  through  us.  There  is  the  quiet 
power  of  pure  example,  of  life  lived  simply  and  un¬ 
obtrusively  in  obedience  to  the  guidance  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  whose  unspoken  meaning  can  be  un¬ 
derstood  and  whose  influence  can  be  felt.  There  is 
the  power  of  unspoken  love  that  never  ceases  to 
press  upon  its  object  with  the  silent  influence  of  its 


24 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


self-giving.  Above  all,  there  is  the  power  of 
ceaseless  intercession  which  nets  the  soul  as  with 
filaments  of  gold  and  draws  it  to  the  feet  of  God. 
In  this  strange  world  we  are  none  of  us  independent 
or  separate,  but  are  members  of  that  hidden  unity 
which  is  the  Body  of  Christ,  and  subject  all  the 
time  to  the  action  of  the  unseen  forces  of  that  Body. 
The  threads  of  the  church’s  intercessions  twine  and 
intertwine  about  the  soul ;  voices  angelic,  saintly, 
and  of  sinners  even,  mix  and  mingle  in  the  ever- 
rising  incense-cloud  that  comes  before  the  rainbow- 
circled  Throne.  Prayers  go  up  from  altars  and 
from  closets,  aye,  from  streets  and  city  squares, 
which  set  in  motion  forces  of  the  spiritual  order 
that  penetrate  to  the  soul  in  the  midst  of  folly  and 
sin.  They  come,  these  messengers  of  God,  to  the 
souls  of  men,  calling  up  memories  of  the  past, 
evoking  the  faces  of  those  long  dead,  awakening 
the  conscience  from  its  torpor,  bringing  back  mem¬ 
ories  of  its  childhood’s  purity,  pressing  the  contrast 
between  the  present  man  or  woman  and  what  they 
once  might  have  been  and  hoped  to  be.  There  are 
unnumbered  points  of  contact  where  the  powers  of 
the  spiritual  world  touch  us  awakening  in  us  re¬ 
sponse  to  the  monitions  they  convey. 

The  response  to  our  Lord’s  revelation  of  himself 
as  eternal  as  the  “I  am/’  has,  we  remember,  a  back¬ 
ward  look  to  the  revelation  of  God  which  i3  in  the 


I  AM 


25 


Old  Testament.  It  is  there  that  God  is  represent¬ 
ed  as  making  himself  known  to  Moses  and  sending 
him  to  the  children  of  Israel  with  the  message,  “I 
Am  hath  sent  me  unto  you.”  It  is  the  name  of  God 
connected  in  a  special  way  with  the  future  and  the 
fulfillment  of  the  divine  promises :  it  is  the  name 
that  assures  us  of  the  constant  presence  of  God 
making  good  his  promises  to  us.  It  is  the  name 
that  calls  out  faith — our  Lord  contrasts  the  blind¬ 
ness  of  the  Jews  that  saw  him,  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh,  with  the  faith  of  Abraham  who  saw  his  day 
and  was  glad.  Abraham’s  was  the  vision  of  one 
who  sees  the  fulfillment  of  God’s  promises  in  the 
fact  that  they  are  God’s.  What  God  promises  is 
at  once  a  certainty,  and  faith  embraces  it  as  such. 
And  we,  however  much  we  have  received,  still  live 
by  faith  in  the  promises  of  God.  The  response 
that  we  make  to  God’s  promises  is  to  act  upon  them 
as  certain  things  to  which  we  may  fearlessly  submit 
ourselves.  This  is  at  the  basis  of  our  adoption  of 
spiritual  ideals  of  life,  filling  our  lives  with  activi¬ 
ties  that  are  useless  and  meaningless  if  life  is  con¬ 
terminous  with  this  world,  which  become  meaning¬ 
ful  only  if  this  life  is  preparatory  to  a  life  in  the 
future  in  the  presence  of  God.  Whatever  fruits 
humanity  may  have  here  and  now  they  are  but 
•‘first  fruits”  of  a  harvest  rich  beyond  all  imagining 
that  we  shall  reap  hereafter.  But  that  harvest  is 


26 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


revealed  to  the  eye  of  faith  that  has  embraced  the 
promises  of  God.  The  full  significance  of  the 
Christian  virtues  is  as  yet  only  visible  to  faith;  of 
this  we  may  say  that  it  “does  not  yet  appear  what 
they  shall  be.”  That  is  why  the  Christian  life  re¬ 
mains  a  mystery  to  so  many.  Why  not,  they  ask, 
pluck  the  fruit  now  ready  to  your  hand?  But  the 
answer  is,  Why  eat  the  green  fruit?  We  are  wait¬ 
ing  for  the  harvest,  for  the  fruits  that  ripen  upon 
the  Tree  of  Life  which  stands  “in  the  midst  of  the 
street”  of  the  city,  and  “on  either  side  of  the  river.’’ 
There  are  virtues  which  in  this  world  seem  mis¬ 
placed  and  untimely  and  perplexing,  which  we  shall 
find  in  their  full  significance  then.  They  bud  here, 
but  the  air  is  uncongenial  to  them.  It  is  very  dif¬ 
ficult  to  make  much  out  of  meekness  in  a  world  like 
this,  and  the  portion  of  its  inheritance  hitherto  is 
very  small.  Purity  is  a  perplexing  virtue  until  we 
reach  such  a  development  of  it  that  it  becomes  an 
organ  of  vision,  the  medium  of  our  seeing  of  God. 
It  may  be  said,  generally,  of  the  training  of  the 
Christian,  that  what  the  Holy  Spirit  does  in  that 
training  we  do  not  see  now,  but  we  shall  see  here¬ 
after;  here  in  the  half-shadows  of  the  brazen  mir¬ 
ror,  enigmatically;  there  in  full-flowered  signifi¬ 
cance.  It  is  a  wonderful  thing,  this  faith  of  the 
Christian,  no  less  than  a  divine  gift,  which  enables 
us  to  pursue  a  way  of  which  we  know  that  we  shall 


I  AM 


27 


see  no  end  here  to  sow  “harvests’*  that  we  must  die 
to  reap,  to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  building  that 
can  only  be  completed  in  another  world. 

But  such  have  been  the  lives  of  God’s  saints  from 
the  beginning,  from  faithful  Abraham  to  this  day, 
they  have  walked  by  faith  in  the  Son  of  God.  Gen¬ 
eration  after  generation  has  gone  to  its  grave 
looking  eagerly  to  the  revelation  that  is 
on  the  other  side  of  death — eagerly,  and  not 
at  all  doubtingly,  for  they  know  that  “faith¬ 
ful  is  he  who  has  promised.”  And  as  we 
know  that  the  light  that  we  see  streaming  athwart 
the  darkness  of  the  winter  night  must  have  some 
source,  so  we  know  that  the  life  of  faith  which  has 
lightened  men’s  steps  through  the  darkness  of  this 
world  has  its  source  in  the  world  of  the  Spirit,  and 
that  those  who  follow  it  will  find  their  home. 

And  though  it  be  true  that  we  walk  by  faith,  not 
by  sight,  yet  there  is  an  element  of  sight  in  our 
experience.  We  see  Jesus,  the  present  revelation 
of  God.  We  see  his  life,  which  was  like  our  life 
“crowned  with  glory  and  honor.”  We  see  the  ap¬ 
parent  finality  of  death  conquered  by  him.  We 
see  him  in  the  power  of  his  resurrection  passing 
into  the  open  heavens  and  taking  his  Throne  at 
the  Right  Hand  of  the  Father.  And  we  hear  the 
words  of  his  promise,  “Where  I  am  there  shall 
my  servant  be,”  “because  I  live  ye  shall  live  also.” 


a 8  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

And  we  look  out  across  the  snow-bound  fields  of 
death  to  where  a  light  breaks  from  the  world  of 
the  Spirit,  and  hear  the  voice  of  his  invitation  fall¬ 
ing  on  our  dying  ears,  “Come  unto  me  all  ye  that 
are  weary  and  heavy-laden,  and  I  will  give  you 
rest.” 


I  AM  THE  WAY. 


Let  us  listen  to  the  zvords  of  our  Lord  — 

I  Am  the  Way. 

Let  us  try  to  picture  to  ourselves  — 

journeying  of  the  Children  of  Israel 
through  the  wilderness.  We  imagine  them 
joyfully  going  out  from  Egypt  in  eagerness 
to  reach  the  Land  of  Promise,  but  if  we  think  a 
moment  we  know  that  few  of  them  had  so  definite 
a  thought  of  the  future  as  is  implied  in  that.  The 
thing  that  was  foremost  in  their  minds  was  the 
fact  of  their  slavery;  anything  was  better  than 
that;  so  they  were  ready  to  follow  Moses.  But 
with  what  continual  hesitations  and  murmurings 
as  the  difficulties  of  the  way  displayed  themselves. 
We  seem  to  see  them  on  their  line  of  march  through 
the  waterless  wilderness — stretches  of  rock  and 


29 


3°  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

sand  glowing  under  the  pitiless  light  of  the  mid-day 
sun.  What  heart-crushing  monotony;  it  oppresses 
one  even  now  to  read  of  it.  “And  they  departed 
from  Hashemona  and  encamped  at  Moseroth.  And 
they  departed  from  Moseroth  and  pitched  in  Bene- 
Jaakan”.  Day  after  day,  year  after  year,  of  mere 
wilderness — the  murmurings  and  the  rebellions  be¬ 
came  quite  conceivable.  How  aimless  it  must 
have  seemed  to  the  average  Israelite  whether  they 
moved  or  camped ;  whether  they  stayed  few  days  or 
more.  With  what  indifference  he  listened  to  the 
trumpet  that  told  him  that  that  day  they  were  to> 
set  forward  to  some  station  which  would  be  but 
a  repetition  of  the  rock  and  sand  and  scanty  herb¬ 
age  that  he  could  see  now  from  his  tent  door.  With 
what  hopeless  lack  of  interest  he  saw  the  symbol 
of  faith — of  a  faith  that  he  hardly  shared — the 
priest-borne  Ark  setting  forward  on  the  desert 
way.  To  him  it  only  meant  the  weariness  of  one 
more  day’s  march,  and  when  the  day  ended  he 
was  confident  that  whatever  else  the  crimson  light 
of  the  sunset  revealed  to  him,  it  would  not  be  the 
vine-clad  hills  and  the  waving  corn-fields  of  a 
Promised  Land.  Think  of  the  weary  horror  of  a 
life  that  had  ceased  to  believe  and  expect. 

Consider,  first  — 

That  notwithstanding  the  discouragment  of  the 


I  AM  THE  WAY 


31 


appearance,  these  people  were  approaching  the  ful¬ 
fillment  of  their  hopes.  Beyond  the  hills  there  lay, 
gleaming  in  the  sunlight — that  same  sunlight  that 
now,  reflected  from  wastes  of  rock  and  sand, 
blinded  them — slopes  clad  with  vine  and  valleys 
laughing  with  corn.  It  was  but  a  little  way  to  go 
physically ;  but,  alas !  it  was  so  far  spiritually.  The 
reason  they  had  not  passed  the  border  long  ago 
lay  just  in  themselves.  That  is  the  value  of  such 
history  as  this,  that  it  displays  the  pathetic  tragedy 
of  humanity  blindly  shutting  itself  from  the  yearn¬ 
ing  of  the  divine  tenderness  by  its  unfaith:  by  its 
self-willed  resistance  to  the  divine  guidance  clos¬ 
ing  to  itself  the  road  to  the  Promised  Land.  It 
was  only  a  little  way  off,  the  unfolding  of  the  divine 
purpose,  the  fulfillment  of  the  divine  promise ;  but 
it  was  whole  worlds  away  from  the  spiritual  ca¬ 
pacity  of  these  men.  So  they  must  die  and  leave 
their  bones  in  the  wilderness,  and  what  had  been 
offered  to  them  would  be  offered  in  turn  to  their 
children.  God  was  there  awaiting  them,  speaking 
to  them  by  the  mouth  of  his  faithful  servants;  but 
they,  his  chosen,  are  overwhelmed  by  the  material 
difficulties  of  life,  and  unable  to  oppose  to  them 
a  triumphal  faith — a  faith  that  can  confront  the 
present  in  a  confidence  born  out  of  past  experiences 
of  God.  How  is  it  that  the  past,  so  obviously  God- 


32 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


guided,  gives  men  so  little  of  confident  hope  in  the 
face  of  the  present  difficulty? 

Consider ,  second  — 

That  our  necessity  is  to  find  God’s  guidance  in 
the  midst  of  our  present  life.  We  need  to  guard 
against  the  temptation  under  which  Israel  fell — 
the  danger  of  making  material  success  and  com¬ 
fort  in  such  wise  the  end  of  our  thought  that  we 
shall  regard  the  achievement  of  them  as  the  mark 
of  the  divine  approval.  Nothing  more  surely 
closes  our  eyes  to  distant  prospects  and  deadens 
our  souls  to  the  need  of  future  seeking  than  the 
self-contentment  of  a  comfortable  life.  Content¬ 
ment  in  religion  is  the  mark  of  lukewarmness. 
We  reach  no  Promised  Lands  of  spiritual  conquest 
except  across  the  weariness  of  deserts  where  we 
eeem  often  to  have  lost  the  way,  often  on  the 
point  of  being  conquered  by  our  enemies,  often  at 
the  end  of  our  powers  of  endurance.  We  cry  out 
for  plainness,  for  certainty;  we  rebel  against  the 
fact  that  we  have  to  live  by  faith ;  we  insist  on  all 
intellectual  difficulties  in  religion  being  removed. 
We  want  visible  and  tangible  guidance:  “Up,  make 
us  gods  to  go  before  us ;  for  as  for  this  Moses,  we 
wot  not  what  has  become  of  him”.  We  want  to 
be  fed  with  the  solid  food  of  earth — our  soul 


I  AM  THE  WAY 


33 


loatheth  this  light  bread  of  faith  and  grace  ard  the 
invisible  presence  of  the  Divine;  these  are  too  in¬ 
tangible  to  support  and  guide.  But  they  are  the 
only  guides  there  are.  The  alternative  is,  rely  on 
them  and  fare  forward,  or  die  here  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness.  We  must  find  God  here  in  the  midst  of  the 
commonness  of  the  daily  duty,  as  a  part  of  the  daily 
routine ;  we  must  see  him  hidden  in  the  ordinary 
happenings  of  life.  God  is  One  and  Omnipresent, 
and  if  we  cannot  find  him  here,  we  cannot  find  him 
anywhere.  The  way  of  his  love  and  of  his  guid¬ 
ance  stretches  before  us  morning  by  morning — a 
daily  way.  We  rise  to  go  on  our  journey  from 
some  Hashemona  that  we  have  found  sand  ar.d 
barrenness,  to  some  Moseroth  that  will  most  likely 
prove  as  tiresome.  We  impatiently  murmur,  Is 
this  the  joy  and  reward  of  serving  God?  No: 
because  we  have  missed  the  companionship  that 
should  lighten  the  way.  We  have  forgotten  that 
the  significance  of  the  way  is  that  it  has  been  worn 
by  the  feet  that  have  preceded  us,  that  it  is  in¬ 
dicated  even  now  by  the  Pillar  of  Cloud  by  day 
and  the  Pillar  of  Fire  by  night — the  symbols  of  the 
Presence  of  God.  We  fail  to  see  that  its  dreariness 
is  the  result  of  our  letting  go  of  the  hand  of  God 
and  attempting  to  walk  in  our  own  wisdom  and 
strength. 

(4) 


34 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


Let  us  then  pray  — 

To  remember  that  God’s  guiding  presence  is 
with  us  here  and  now.  That  we  may  lift  our  eyes 
from  the  dreariness  of  the  desert  to  the  Divine 
Light  that  is  always  before  us. 

Jesus,  our  Master,  do  thou  meet  us  while  we 
walk  in  the  way,  and  long  to  reach  the  Country; 
so  that  following  thy  light,  we  may  keep  the  way 
of  righteousness,  and  never  wander  away  into  the 
horrible  darkness  of  this  world’s  night,  while  Thou, 
who  art  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life,  art  shin¬ 
ing  within  us.  Through  the  same  Jesus  Christ,  our 
Lord. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  • 

As  one  looks  back  over  one’s  life  in  the  light 
of  one’s  Christian  experience,  one  feels  that  noth¬ 
ing  more  awful  could  befall  one  than  not  to  know 
God.  What  barrenness  and  waste,  how  like  a 
desert  way  that  has  no  known  end,  a  way  marked 
by  the  bleaching  bones  of  animals  and  men  who 
have  perished  in  their  attempt  to  pass  there,  would 
life  be.  Imagine  all  your  religious  experience 
blotted  out ;  those  moments  of  prayer  when  you 
were  caught  up  into  the  third  heaven  and  saw 
visions  of  God ;  those  hours  of  meditation  when 
the  inner  meaning  of  some  spiritual  truth  grew 
upon  you  till  you  thrilled  with  the  joy  of  discovery 


1  AM  THE  WAY 


35 


and  found  your  life  lit  by  new  light,  and  your 
path  which  had  seemed  dark  and  tangled,  grew 
plain  as  the  revelation  of  the  mind  of  God  shone 
on  it ;  those  times  of  sacramental  communion  when 
you  felt  the  love  of  God  encircle  you  and  the 
Presence  within  your  very  soul.  What  would 
it  mean  to  lose  all  that  and  many,  many  other 
experiences  that  have  been  yours,  and  look  out 
upon  a  world  that  is  at  most  a  creation  of  an  un¬ 
known  God !  To  find  that  behind  the  whole  uni¬ 
verse  there  is  perhaps  the  presence  of  some  Un¬ 
known  Power,  and  to  have  to  decipher  the  meaning 
of  it  from  the  perplexing  facts  of  the  material 
world  itself?  To  feel  in  the  spring  sunshine  the 
stirring  of  a  life  which  is  evidenced  by  the  songs 
of  the  birds,  and  the  waving  of  tall  grasses,  and  all 
the  rich  bloom  wherewith  the  earth  covers  itself, 
and  have  no  power  to  translate  the  meaning  of 
this  joyous  existence!  To  feel  the  pleasure  of  it 
die  away  and  be  replaced  by  vague  forebodings 
of  ill  as  the  clouds  gather  and  the  storm  comes 
and  the  birds’  notes  die  away  and  brightness  passes 
from  the  face  of  the  earth !  To  be  in  continual  un¬ 
certainty  as  to  the  meaning  of  life — life  which 
seems  to  come  out  of  darkness  and  vanish  as  mys¬ 
teriously  as  it  came ! 

That  is  what  the  world  was  for  many  centuries; 
and  the  reason  that  it  is  not  that  to  us  to-daj  is 


36  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

because  God  has  made  a  Revelation  of  Himself. 
But  still  it  is  only  some  few  that  the  revelation  has 
effectively  reached.  The  world  remains  in  its  old 
darkness  for  multitudes  even  now ;  and  not  those 
whom  we  describe  as  “in  heathen  darkness  lying,” 
and  struggle  to  evangelize  and  bring  to  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  Revelation  God  has  made,  but  multi¬ 
tudes  in  our  own  land  whom  no  Gospel  has  enlight¬ 
ened.  This  country  is  filled  with  people  of  no 
religion  for  whom  God  in  Christ  has  revealed  him¬ 
self  in  vain.  You  know  some  of  them  perhaps ;  they 
are  even  members  of  your  own  household,  they  are 
your  intimate  friends;  and  they  grope  their  way 
through  the  world  without  guidance;  they  try  to 
think  that  all  will  end  for  the  best ;  and  they 
strive  to  sustain  the  mystery  of  it  as  they 
may.  Or  there  are  people  with  only  a  half- 
assimilated  religion,  whose  minds  are  chaos 
in  respect  to  all  spiritual  things — they  also 
get  nothing  of  guidance  in  their  perplexity,  or 
help  in  their  weakness  and  need.  How  pathetic 
they  are,  these  gropers !  When  they  have  to  make 
the  critical  decisions  of  life,  and  no  man  can  es¬ 
cape  a  necessity  to  make  them,  they  blindly  catch 
at  any  straw  that  would  seem  to  help  them,  not 
knowing  where  to  turn  for  help  in  their  inexperi¬ 
ence  of  God.  In  the  crisis  of  suffering  and  loss 
their  distressful  faces  sadden  us ;  but  they  are  even 


I  AM  THE  WAY 


37 


sadder  in  their  moments  of  elation  and  success, 
when  they  glow  with  a  sense  of  triumph  which  we 
know  can  be  but  passing.  This  world  in  which 
the  Revelation  of  God  offers  itself  and  cannot  get 
listened  to  is  even  more  pitiable  than  the  world 
that  is  still  waiting  and  striving  and  hoping  for 
some  knowledge  of  God.  Nay,  one  feels  that  that 
living  world  of  heathenism,  with  all  its  limitations 
and  all  its  falsities,  is  a  more  hopeful  world,  a 
world  nearer  God,  than  the  world  of  dead  souls 
that  surrounds  the  oases  of  Christianity  in  America. 
The  wood  and  stone  that  the  heathen  bow  down  to, 
symbolize  something  spiritually  more  energetic, 
something  that  enters  life  with  a  power  more  in¬ 
vigorating,  than  the  ideals  which  fill  minds  of 
many  a  western  man  or  woman,  who  is  still  quite 
sure  of  his  superior  enlightenment,  quite  certain 
that  whatever  the  future,  which  he  doesn’t  much 
trouble  to  think  of,  holds  for  him,  will  be  of  the 
best ;  that  when  the  mists  that  now  hang  before  it 
unclose  they  will  reveal  the  City  of  God.  One  lets 
one’s  imagination  wander  a  little  freely,  and  thinks 
of  a  fleet  of  ships  sailing  out  from  some  port  upon 
the  ocean’s  edge.  Many  voyagers  have  already 
crossed  that  sea ;  they  have  told  the  tale  of  its 
danger  and  left  the  story  of  its  safest  paths.  But 
our  fleet  heeds  none  of  these,  neither  will  it  take 
compass — the  invention  of  medieval  man,  nor  re- 


3$  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

gard  the  stars — the  superstition  of  half  barbarous 
ancestors.  But  they  sail  gayly  out  into  the  distance 
which  they  choose  to  think  unknown ;  they  vanish 
in  the  mists  of  silver,  pink  and  pearl  which  hang 
as  a  curtain  over  the  waters.  Who  shall  prophesy 
their  fate?  Is  it  indeed  the  surest  way  to  find  the 
City  of  God,  to  treat  with  contempt  and  scorn 
those  who  have  been  before  us  in  the  way?  Per¬ 
sonally,  I  get  more  help  on  the  journey  Godwards 
from  those  who  have  worshipped  a  God,  call  him 
as  they  may,  than  from  those  who  can  only  tell  us 
of  their  failure  to  find  any  God  at  all. 

I  am  ever  conscious  of  living  in  a  world  from 
which  God  is  hidden,  where  men  lead  their  lives 
without  the  consciousness  of  anything  more  Divine 
than  themselves.  As  I  watch  them  in  the  use  of 
their  lives  they  seem  to  me  to  be  using  life  quite 
as  a  chance  thing.  There  is  visible  in  them  no 
sense  of  responsibility.  The  thing  that  they  can  do 
is  the  thing  that  they  may  do.  I  seem  to  see  that  this 
lack  of  any  feeling  of  responsibility  to  any  power 
outside  themselves  is  generating  an  intense  selfish¬ 
ness.  The  reactions  of  life  upon  themselves — that 
they  may  be  as  pleasant  as  possible — are  what  men 
are  concerned  with!  The  effect  of  example  or  ac¬ 
tion  on  others  is  negligible.  The  lust  for  mere 
amusement  is  as  a  tide  ever  rising;  and  like  any 
appetite,  as  it  grows  jaded  must  be  whipped  with 


I  AM  THE  WAY 


39 


stimulants  of  ever  greater  intensity.  There  is  a 
luxury  of  amusement  at  which  decadent  Rome 
would  have  stared  in  wonder  and  envy.  There  is 
a  shamelessness  of  dress  ,  of  conversation,  of  action, 
at  which  one  stands  aghast.  And  the  answer  to 
those  who  protest  is  that  we  have  broken  away 
from  the  narrow  views  of  the  past;  and  the  pro¬ 
tester  is  pelted  with  epithets — Puritan,  suburban, 
parochial.  How  long  will  it  be  before  Christian 
is  added?  Men  were  first  called  Christian  with  an 
inflection  of  contempt  as  the  followers  of  One 
who  died  a  death  of  shame.  Is  the  day  coming 
when  the  inflection  which  began  in  Antioch,  will 
come  back  in  New  York?  We  need  not  be  pessi¬ 
mists  to  think  so !  it  is  no  new  fact  in  the  history 
of  our  religion  that  a  society  should  revolt  and 
abandon  it.  It  is  only  in  the  world,  not  in  any 
locality,  that  the  Church  cannot  fail. 

This  spreading  feeling  of  uncertainty  and  ir¬ 
responsibility,  and  heedlessness  of  restraint,  eats 
deeper  into  that  part  of  the  community  which 
still  calls  itself  Christian,  and  still  preserves  some 
semblance  of  allegiance  to  the  religion  of  the  Cruci¬ 
fied.  We  have  got  back  to  the  state  of  the  early 
Church  where  the  difficulty  of  being  a  Christian 
was  intensified  by  the  fact  that  the  profession  of 
Christianity  made  an  open  breach  with  the  society 
in  which  the  believer  lived.  It  has  become  once 


40 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


more  exceedingly  difficult  to  train  a  child  in  the 
practice  of  religion,  because  the  practice  of  religion 
more  and  more  means  isolation — the  separation  of 
the  life,  the  amusements, — from  the  social  life 
of  his  fellows.  We  have  been  dwelling  so  much 
on  the  difficulty  of  belief  as  being  intellectual  dif¬ 
ficulty  that  we  have  neglected  the  fact  that  the 
greatest  difficulties  of  religion  are  social.  It  is  not 
so  difficult  to  believe  in  a  God,  as  in  a  God  whose 
service  can  be  combined  with  the  social  life  of 
our  time.  Our  intolerance  of  restraint  makes  a 
religion  that  restrains  abhorred.  When  the  lure  of 
the  city  appeals  so  intensely  to  every  sense — offers 
every  sense  its  full  gratification — how  difficult  is  the 
mission  of  a  religion  which  teaches  the  control  and 
repression  of  the  senses.  When  the  material  is 
omnipresent  and  insistent,  how  can  the  voice  of  the 
spiritual  needs  of  man  hope  to  make  itself  heard 
and  heeded?  How  can  a  religion  which  has  as 
its  basis  a  demand  for  asceticism  expect  success 
with  a  community  which  has  forgotten  the  very 
meaning  of  asceticism  except  as  a  word  of  con¬ 
tempt? 

All  this  sounds  very  pessimistic,  I  know;  but 
it  is  not  really  so.  It  is  never  hopeless  to  face  the 
facts  as  they  are ;  indeed,  the  only  hopeful  proced¬ 
ure  is  first  of  all  to  be  clear  where  we  stand — to 
be  clear  as  to  the  nature  of  the  problem  before  us. 


I  AM  THE  WAY 


41 


I  do  not  conceal  that  to  me  the  problem  seems  of 
the  gravest ;  but  it  is  not  therefore  hopeless.  The 
Christian  religion  has  more  than  once  shown 
itself  capable  of  regenerating  the  ideals  and  re¬ 
animating  the  moral  force  of  society  which  seemed 
doomed.  It  can  do  so  once  again.  But  in  order  to 
do  so  it  must  first  of  all  shake  itself  loose  from  the 
cords  wherewith  modern  religious  theory  has 
bound  it  fast.  We  need  to  get  rid  of  the  altogether 
human  and  philanthropic  Christ  of  modern  re¬ 
ligionism,  in  whom  no  Divinity  is  perceptible ;  who 
must  perform  no  miracle,  lest  he  offend  science ; 
who  must  not  be  born  of  a  virgin,  lest  he  offend 
“the  uniformity  of  nature and  must  not  rise 
again  on  the  third  day  from  the  dead,  because  a 
bodily  resurrection  makes  too  many  difficulties  for 
philosophers.  We  need  that  thoroughly  super¬ 
natural  Christ  who  “coming  down  from  heaven” 
imparts  to  the  nature  that  he  unites  to  himself 
the  regenerating  force  of  present  God.  If  we  are 
simply  a  part  of  nature,  caught  in  the  net  of  its 
unswerving  laws,  how  can  we  hope  to  disentangle 
ourselves !  It  is  only  as  a  new  power  comes  to  our 
help  that  we  can  look  for  rescue,  that  we  can  hope¬ 
fully  expect  to  see  an  open  road  to  God. 

To  open  such  a  road  is  the  mission  of  Christ,  He 
brought  not  “good  advice”  as  to  our  bearing  to 
our  fellowmen,  but  “Good  News”  of  restored  ac- 


42 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


cess  to  the  Father.  In  the  Incarnation  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  God — that  meaning  which  men  had  striven 
from  the  beginning  to  understand,  and  sometimes 
had  indeed  grasped  the  fringe  of,  but  more  often 
had  grotesquely  misunderstood — is  unfolded.  The 
Good  News  of  the  Incarnation  is  that  Jesus  is  God; 
that  God  is  not  an  abstract  conception  for  the 
human  intellect  to  amuse  or  perplex  itself  with, 
but  that  the  meaning  of  God  is  to  be  found  in 
the  life  of  Jesus.  Here  is  God’s  self-presentation. 
He  who  sees  Jesus  sees  the  Father;  he  who  knows 
Jesus  knows  the  Father.  There  is  no  other  way 
to  this  seeing  and  knowing  than  through  Jesus. 

“I  am  the  way,”  Jesus  says.  He  does  not  say, 
I  make  known  the  way ;  but  I  am  the  way.  The 
difference  is  very  great.  It  is  that  we  are  not 
called  or  directed  to  follow  a  prescribed  path;  we 
are  not  told  to  walk  by  ourselves  under  however 
efficient  direction ;  ' but  we  are  invited  to  approach 
the  Father  in  Christ,  by  a  life  of  union  with  him. 
Our  Lord  does  not  reveal  himself  as  the  goal  of  a 
journey  which  is  beset  with  dangers  and  difficulties, 
and  on  which  we  may  quite  conceivably  go  astray. 
He  reveals  himself  as  the  beginning  of  that  jour¬ 
ney,  that  beginning  and  abiding  in  him  we  need 
never  go  astray.  The  Christian  life  does  not  end 
in  union,  as  the  crown  of  its  achievement;  it  be¬ 
gins  with  union  as  the  conditon  of  its  success. 


I  AM  THE  WAY 


43 


‘Thou  art  the  Way, 

Hadst  thou  been  but  the  Goal, 

I  cannot  say 

Thou’dst  ever  found  my  soul.’ 

Herein  is  that  tremendous  difference  that  separ¬ 
ates  Christianity  from  all  other  religions.  It  is,  too, 
the  touchstone  of  Catholic  Christianity  which  sep¬ 
arates  it  from  other  forms  of  religion  which  assume 
the  name  of  Christianity,  and  do,  indeed,  contain 
Christian  elements.  Contrast  it  for  a  moment  with 
that  conception  of  Christianity  which  is  called 
liberal.  This  conceives  the  essence  of  religion  to 
be  that  Christ  revealed  God  as  our  Father,  and  all 
men  as  brethren.  This  surely  is  much;  contrasted 
with  the  message  of  other  religions  it  can  hardly  be 
over-appreciated.  But  considered  in  itself  it  has 
obvious  limitations.  The  most  obvious  is  that  it 
leaves  us  with  an  ideal  that  is  so  stupendous  that 
it  depresses.  The  ideal  of  life  that  is  involved, — 
who  can  attain  to!  In  the  end  liberalism  is  com¬ 
pelled  to  hold  that,  while  its  ideal  is  beautiful  it 
does  not  matter  very  much  to  one’s  soul’s  health 
whether  one  attain  it  or  no.  If  one  attain  it  one 
becomes  a  better  and  more  helpful  man;  but  one 
never  becomes  more.  This  is  so  because  an  ideal 
has  no  compulsive  force;  it  attracts,  it  does  not 
energize.  To  liberalism  Christianity  is  external 


44 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


teaching,  directing  one,  not  eternal  life  possessing 
one. 

Christianity  does  not  end  in  God,  it  begins  in 
God.  It  is  not  the  aspiration  and  fruition  of  natural 
powers,  but  the  gift  of  himself  that  God  in  Christ 
makes  to  us.  The  old  summing  up  of  Christianity 
is  the  truest;  God  became  man  that  man  might  be¬ 
come  Divine.  The  way  of  approach  to  God  is 
through  God  himself.  We  must  first  be  in  God 
and  God  in  us,  and  then  we  can  and  must  grow 
up  in  God  till  we  attain  to  the  full-grown 
spiritual  man.  The  Christian  life  is  the  bringing 
into  explicitness  of  the  life  of  God  which  is  implicit 
within  our  souls  through  our  union  with  the  In¬ 
carnate.  Christian  experience  is  not  conformity  to 
some  set  of  rules  of  living,  but  is  the  externalization 
of  the  Christ-experience  with  which  we  have  been 
united.  Just  as  the  clay  under  the  manipulation  of 
the  sculptor  grows  to  express  his  thought — a  thought 
that  was  there  from  the  beginning  and  which  you 
may  watch  in  the  very  process  of  its  growth  as  you 
look  on  at  the  work ;  so  the  life  of  the  Christian 
tends  to  express  the  divine  thought  for  it,  and  you 
see  the  birth-process  as  you  watch  the  process  of 
the  unfolding  life.  The  figure  is  imperfect.  It  is 
really  as  though  the  clay  itself  had  the  thought  of 
a  perfect  statue  and  were  moulding  itself  under  the 
impulse  of  the  thought.  Something  like  this  we  do 


I  AM  THE  WAY 


45 


find  in  the  world  of  life  where  the  fertilized  cell 
which  is  the  beginning  of  each  living  thing  con¬ 
tains  the  promise  and  potency  of  the  full  grown 
creature.  We  can  see  the  process  of  the  creature’s 
growth  under  the  impulse  of  the  indwelling  life; 
but  we  cannot  fathom  the  mystery  of  heredity 
by  which  each  life  brings  forth  “after  his  kind.” 
Neither  can  we  fathom  the  mystical  union  by  which 
the  heredity  of  our  “sinful  nature”  is  modified 
and  at  length  abolished,  and  -  the  “new  creation” 
in  Christ  Jesus  is  brought  to  birth  and  maturity. 

The  way  to  the  Father,  then,  is  revealed  to  be 
through  ever  more  completely  realized  union  with 
Christ  Jesus.  This  is  the  way  to  the  Father  be¬ 
cause  Christ  is  being  formed  in  us,  our  lives  are 
conformed  to  him ;  that  is,  the  external  life  grows 
into  more  exact  correspondence  with  its  internal 
reality.  This  process  of  expressing  Christ  is  the 
Christian  life — each  new  and  growing  virtue  of 
that  life  being  an  added  experience  of  the  Christ- 
life  in  which  we  are  “hidden”,  one  more  mark  of 
our  “conformity”  to  him  in  all  things,  one  more 
step  in  the  Way  which  he  is.  As  we  watch  the 
life  of  nature,  which  ultimately  is  the  life  of  God, 
embodying  itself  at  the  coming  of  Spring  in  leaf 
and  bud  and  flower,  performing  before  cur  very 
eyes  the  miracle  of  creation;  so  we  may  follow  in 
the  unfolding  of  the  life  of  the  Christian  the  process 


46  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

of  spiritual  creation — the  first  tentative,  hesitant 
appearance  of  a  spiritual  quality,  its  struggle  for 
stability,  its  acquisition  of  strength,  its  power  of 
resistance,  its  unfolding  in  the  maturity  of  its 
growth.  Each  such  conformity  of  the  life  to  its 
Way,  which  is  Christ,  is  a  new  revelation  of  in¬ 
dwelling  Divine  power,  and  in  turn  is  a  new  organ 
of  receptivity  through  which  a  fuller  revelation  of 
the  meaning  of  God  makes  its  way  to  it. 

It  is  by  such  steps  in  the  Way  that  the  Christian 
comes  to  his  goal — comes  to  know  the  Father  as 
revealed  in  Christ.  This  knowledge  can  only  come 
through  likeness.  We  know  the  Father  through 
the  Son  who  alone  has  seen  him.  By  union  with 
the  Son  we  have  acquired  capacity  to  know.  As 
he  himself  says:  “no  man  knoweth  ....  who 
the  Father  is  save  the  Son  and  he  to  whom  the 
Son  will  reveal  him.”  And  this  knowledge  is  not 
an  external  communication  of  knowledge,  as  one 
can  tell  another  fact  about  God ;  it  is  much  more 
intimate  than  that,  and  is  by  participation  of  nature. 

We,  then,  are  in  the  Way — in  Christ;  and  pro¬ 
gress  in  the  spiritual  life  means  a  growing  con¬ 
trol  of  the  life  of  Christ  over  our  life ;  not  simply 
a  growing  pressure  of  his  example,  conceived  as 
the  typical  life,  but  an  inner  mastery  of  our  life 
by  his  Spirit  which  dwelleth  in  us.  So  the  Way 
to  the  Father,  which  is  Jesus,  becomes  more  famil- 


I  AM  THE  WAY 


47 


iar  to  us,  and  we  begin  to  understand  his  own  say¬ 
ing,  “he  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father’’ 
— come  to  understand  that  Jesus  is  not  the  mes¬ 
senger  of  a  distant  God,  but  a  revelation  of  the 
one  God  whom  for  the  present  we  can  only  know 
as  he  reveals  himself  under  the  limitations  of  our 
nature. 

It  results  from  this  fact  of  our  being  in  “the 
Way”  that  all  that  restlessness  and  selfishness  of 
which  I  spoke  in  the  beginning  of  this  meditation, 
appears  to  us  in  its  true  character  as  the  struggle 
of  a  nature  as  yet  not  perfectly  subdued  to  the 
obedience  of  Christ,  inasmuch  as  the  will  of  the 
flesh  is  not  perfectly  merged  in  the  will  of  the 
Spirit.  Perfect  life  is  perfect  correspondence; 
and  we  have  not  reached  perfection  while  there 
remains  a  strong  tension  of  the  will  of  the  flesh. 
Our  approximation  to  perfection  may  be  measured 
by  stress  of  this  will  and  the  frequent  disturbance 
of  the  life.  Just  as  in  the  evolution  of  morals 
there  are  acts  which  were  once  innocent  which  have 
become  sin  as  the  moral  level  of  human  life  has 
been  raised,  so  there  are  directions  and  applica¬ 
tions  of  our  life’s  energy  which  were  possible  for 
us  at  one  stage  of  our  spiritual  development,  but 
which  are  become  impossible  simply  because  the 
level  of  our  life  has  been  raised.  As  you  travel 
from  the  lowlands  up  the  mountain-side  the  path 


48 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


which  you  follow  winds  ever  amid  a  changing 
flora;  you  pass  out  of  the  rank  growths  of  marsh 
plants  and  grasses  to  the  sturdier  growths  of  the 
windswept  highlands.  The  elms  and  willows  give 
way  to  the  chestnuts  and  oaks  and  pines.  At  each 
level  the  life,  if  less  exuberant,  is  stronger,  able  to 
abide  a  severer  stress  of  the  storm  wind,  able  to 
endure  a  bleaker  sky.  It  is  so  in  the  growth  of  the 
spirit.  In  our  religious  immaturity  what  Fruits  of 
the  Spirit  we  show  are  unstable  and  need  protec¬ 
tion,  and  we  still  tend  to  revert  to  an  inferior  type 
of  production,  as  the  gorgeous  hybrid  tends  to 
revert  to  its  ancestoral  wild-flower.  And  the  fruits 
of  the  flesh  continue,  at  least  sporadically,  beside 
the  Fruits  of  the  Spirit.  As  we  advance  to  the 
heights  we  are  disciplined  by  the  winds  of  adversity, 
and  the  storms  of  affliction,  and,  if  we  can  stand 
the  process  of  transplanting  to  the  new  climate, 
we  put  forth  a  new  strength  which  reveals  itself 
in  qualities  of  patience,  of  endurance,  of  serenity. 
There  is  a  figure  familiar  to  the  Old  Testament 
drawn  from  the  open  threshing-floor  of  the  ancients. 
We  see  the  hard-beaten  clay  floor  on  the  windy 
hill-top,  and  the  husbandman  tossing  the  mingled 
wheat  and  chaff  in  the  air;  and  we  see  the  chaff 
blown  away  before  the  wind,  while  the  heavy  grain 
falls  back  to  the  ground.  So  our  characters  are 
winnowed  by  the  wind  of  the  Spirit,  and  the  chaff 


I  AM  THE  WAY 


49 


swept  away  that  the  good  wheat  may  remain  un¬ 
mixed.  Those  who  are  in  the  Way  travel  upward, 
and  must  be  exposed,  as  he  was,  to  the  trials  of  the 
Ascent.  They  must  pass  the  rock-strewn  desert 
where  every  stone  suggests  that  they  might  stop 
there  and  sate  the  senses  with  the  bread  of  this 
world  which  their  nature  hungers  after,  abandoning 
their  high  mission,  and  leaving  the  Way-farer  to 
go  on  alone.  Bread  is  good  and  innocent,  and  they 
are  weary  of  the  “light  bread’’  of  spiritual  susten¬ 
ance.  They  must  find  themselves  mysteriously 
raised  on  the  pinnacle  of  the  Temple,  looking  down 
to  the  thronged  courts  below,  and  hear  the  whisper 
of  the  crowds  which  suggests  a  baseless  trust  in 
God — Abandon  the  Way  here  and  cast  thyself 
down ;  rest  in  the  present  attainment,  it  is  enough 
to  impress  men  with  your  sanctity ;  the  way  beyond 
is  still  steep  and  toilsome.  They  must  stand  upon 
the  mountain-top  at  last,  and  there  find,  surprisedly, 
that  what  is  revealed  to  them  is  not  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  come  with  power,  but  a  vision  of  the 
Kingdoms  of  the  world  and  all  the  glory  of  them, 
sunlit,  entrancing,  enticing,  and  feel  the  certainty 
that  all  these  may  be  theirs  if  only  they  will  abandon 
the  Way.  It  is  an  appalling  alternative  which  con¬ 
fronts  the  soul — to  stretch  out  the  hand  and  have 
all  these  which  it  thought  it  had  abandoned  and 
which  had  never  seemed  so  beautiful  as  in  this 

(5) 


5<> 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


moment  when  they  are  ready  to  vanish  forever;  or 
close  the  eyes  to  them,  certain  that  when  once 
more  they  are  opened  we  shall  stand  upon  a  moun¬ 
tain  indeed,  but  with  no  vision  of  kingdoms  at  our 
feet,  but  instead,  find  close  beside  us,  the  Cross  in 
all  its  gaunt  nakedness.  This  is  the  thing  that  we 
have  chosen.  Hitherto  has  the  Way  lead  us;  and 
we  with  him  must  hang  thereon. 

“I  am  the  Way.”  he  says;  ‘‘no  man  cometh  to 
the  Father  but  by  me.”  There  is  no  other  way. 
But  as  we  think  of  our  progress  Godward  we  in¬ 
ject  into  our  thought  much  of  hardness  and  diffi¬ 
culty  which  is  not  there ;  we  let  our  imagination 
gather  clouds  over  the  future  that  we  shall  not 
have  to  pass  through.  For  again,  remember  we 
are  not  seeking  the  Father  in  response  to  the  com¬ 
mand  of  Christ,  but  we  are  seeking  him  in  Christ. 
The  power  by  which  Christ  endured  the  human 
experience  was  the  power  of  his  union  with  the 
Father — ‘‘I  and  my  Father  are  one”.  And  the 
power  by  which  we  live  the  life  of  the  Spirit  is 
the  like  power  of  union  with  God  in  Christ.  Am  I 
insisting  too  much  when  I  say  again  that  this  is 
not  what  we  end  with  but  what  we  begin  with? 
Every  step  of  our  journey  Godward  is  in  this  Way. 
It  makes  a  tremendous  difference  whether  the 
child  is  sent  out  upon  a  journey  to  the  other  side 
of  the  forest  with  careful  instructions  as  to  the 


I  AM  THE  WAY 


5* 


way  and  the  dangers  he  may  meet,  or  whether  his 
father  just  takes  his  hand  and  says,  ‘‘Come’’.  But 
our  Blessed  Lord  took  our  hands  in  our  earliest 
infancy,  before  we  knew  or  heard  of  him,  and  said, 
“Come” — and  he  has  never  left  us.  He  never 
leaves  us  even  when  we,  consciously,  try  to  leave 
him. 


"I  fled  Him  down  the  nights  and  down  the  days; 

I  fled  Him  down  the  arches  of  the  years ; 

I  fled  Him  down  the  labyrinthine  ways 
Of  my  own  mind;  and  in  the  midst  of  tears 
;  I  hid  from  Him.” 

That  thought  of  the  present,  yet  baffled  God,  is 
one  of  the  deepest  of  our  faith.  We  gaze  on  some 
broken,  sinful  life,  willingly  giving  itself  over  to 
the  power  of  Satan,  as  it  seems,  and  the  hope  fades 
out  of  our  soul.  The  words  that  we  try  to  say  die 
on  our  lips ;  the  hand  that  we  were  about  to  stretch 
out  we  draw  back  again.  Here  is  spiritual 
disaster,  full  and  complete,  we  tell  ourselves.  Here 
is  the  total  wreck  of  one  of  God’s  experiments. 
No  word  or  act  of  ours  can  be  of  any  avail  here. 
It  may  be  so — no  word  or  act  of  ours.  But  are 
there  no  words,  no  acts  of  God,  still  in  reserve? 
Within  that  life,  we  may  be  confident,  there  is 
still  a  struggle.  There  Michael  the  Archangel 
fights  against  the  dragon.  Yes!  and  a  greater 


52 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


than  Michael.  There  the  Way  fights  and  the  soul, 
broken  and  defiled,  is  still  in  the  Way.  He  has  not 
given  over  the  battle ;  and  when  we  have  laid  down 
our  arms  in  despair,  he  still  fights  on.  Perhaps  he 
will  win  even  yet,  as  he  won  the  Thief  on  the  Cross. 
Perhaps  the  tired  eyes  of  the  Father,  looking  once 
more  down  the  lane  that  leads  to  a  Farmhouse 
door,  will  light  up  as  he  recognizes  under  the  rags 
and  dust  the  form  of  his  son — the  son  who,  after 
all  is  coming  back,  drawn  by  the  unseen  force  of 
the  Father’s  love.  We  cannot  know  in  what  depths 
or  corners  of  a  man’s  spiritual  nature  God  can 
hide  himself  and  wait ;  but  we  know  that  he  is 
there,  somewhere,  waiting  and  eager.  We  are 
told  that  in  the  Middle  Ages  when  the  beggar  came 
to  the  monastery  gate — tramp,  outcast,  leper,  what¬ 
ever  he  might  be,  the  brother  who  opened  the  door 
met  him  and  embraced  him  and  kissed  him  upon 
the  forehead  and  led  him  in  to  refreshment  and 
rest.  It  is  thus  that  the  Way  deals  with  us,  abid¬ 
ing  with  us  in  all  our  wanderings,  seeming  to  meet 
and  welcome  us  when  we  return  from  afar — seem¬ 
ing,  for  it  is  a  divine  deceitfulness;  he  has  been 
with  us  all  the  time. 

O  distant  Christ!  the  crowded,  darkening  years 

Drift  slow  between  thy  gracious  face  and  me; 

My  hungry  heart  leans  back  to  look  for  thee, 

But  finds  the  way  set  thick  with  doubts  and  fears. 


I  AM  THE  WAY 


53 


My  groping  hands  would  touch  thy  garment’s  hem, 
Would  find  some  token  thou  art  walking  near; 
Instead  they  grasp  but  empty  darkness  drear, 

And  no  diviner  hands  reach  out  to  them. 

Sometimes  my  listening  soul,  with  bated  breath, 
Stands  still  to  catch  a  foot-fall  by  my  side, 
Lest,  haply,  my  earth-blinded  eyes  but  hide 

Thy  stately  figure  leading  life  and  death ; 

My  straining  eyes,  O  Christ,  but  long  to  mark 
A  shadow  of  thy  presence,  dim  and  sweet, 

Or  far-off  light  to  guide  my  wandering  feet, 

Or  hope  for  hands  prayer-beating  ’gainst  the  dark. 

O  thou!  unseen  by  me,  that  like  a  child 

Tries  in  the  night  to  find  its  mother’s  heart, 
And  weeping  wanders  only  more  apart, 

Not  knowing  in  the  darkness  that  she  smiled — 

Thou,  all  unseen,  dost  hear  my  tired  cry, 

As  I,  in  darkness  of  a  half-belief, 

Grope  for  thy  heart  in  love  and  doubt  and  grief: 

O  Lord !  speak  soon  to  me — “Lo,  here  am  I.” 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH. 

Let  us  listen  to  the  zvords  of  our  Lord  — 
I  Am  the  Truth. 


And  let  us  try  to  picture  to  ourselves  — 

^^^HAT  scene  at  the  foot  of  the  mount  of  Trans- 
figuration,  when  the  father  of  the  possessed 
child  whom  the  disciples  could  not  heal 
comes  running  to  our  Lord  for  help.  See  the  child 
lying  on  the  ground,  wallowing.  Imagine  the  feel¬ 
ings  of  this  father  as  he  states  the  case  to  our  Lord. 
This  is  his  last  hope  for  his  child.  This  horrible 
affliction  had  been  upon  the  child  from  his  infancy. 
He  has  had  to  be  watched  all  the  time,  to  be  rescued 
from  the  water  or  the  fire  into  which  he  was  cast 
by  some  irresistible  power.  Imagine  the  anxiety 
with  which  the  father  returns  home  after  an  ab¬ 
sence — what  has  happened  to  the  child  since  he 


55 


56  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

has  been  away?  He  had  sought  all  means  of  cure, 
even  means  that  were  vainly  stupid  or  useless,  in 
his  anxiety  to  leave  nothing  undone.  This  last 
report  he  had  heard  of  one  who  performed  mar¬ 
velous  cures  looks  more  hopeful,  and  he  seeks 
Jesus.  But  he  only  finds  the  disciples  gathered 
at  the  foot  of  the  mountain.  They  try  to  heal  the 
child — and  fail.  They  fail  because  Jesus  is  not  with 

them.  We  always  fail  when  he  is  away.  And  the 
man’s  hope  almost  fails,  too,  at  this  lack  of  success. 
And  then  Jesus  comes  and  listens  to  the  man’s  story 
— listens  as  he  always  does,  with  sympathy  and 
kindness.  How  rarely  our  Lord  ever  complains  of 
the  stupidity  or  the  irresponsiveness  of  men ;  but 
he  does  now.  “O  faithless  generation.”  And  then 
the  plea  of  the  father,  “If  thou  canst  do  anything”; 
and  the  quick  retort  of  our  Lord,  “If  thou  canst 
believe.”  See  the  last  contortions  of  the  child,  and, 

then,  at  the  word  of  Jesus,  his  struggles  cease  and 
his  limbs  grow  rigid,  and  the  people  murmur,  “He 
is  dead.”  But  Jesus  takes  him  by  the  hand  and 
he  arises. 

Consider ,  first  — 

That  there  was  something  about  our  Lord  that 
inspired  men’s  confidence.  They  felt  that  to  com¬ 
mit  themselves  to  him,  to  surrender  their  lives  into 
his  hands,  was  the  right  and  natural  thing  to  do. 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH 


57 


When  he  called  men,  they  followed  him.  Even 
men  who  it  turned  out  in  the  sequel  had  not  the 
capacity  for  discipleship,  were  so  attracted  by  him 
that  they  miscalculated  their  motives  and  their 
strength  of  purpose  and  offered  themselves  to  him. 
Men  were  convinced  that  here  was  one  who  could 
satisfy  all  their  needs,  and  they  hastened  to  bring 
them  to  him.  This  power  of  inspiring  confidence 
and  unlimited  trust,  is  truth.  Jesus  was  one  evi¬ 
dently  sincere  and  trustworthy;  he  could  be  taken 
at  his  word.  But  more  than  that;  his  trustworthi¬ 
ness  was  not  that  of  one  who  was  honest  in  word 
and  deed ;  it  was  that  of  one  whose  knowledge  and 
insight  were  unerring.  Men  trusted  him  because 
they  felt  that  they  were  safe  in  his  hands,  that  there 
would  be  no  mistake  or  bungling  in  dealing  with 
their  case.  The  friend  that  you  rely  upon,  the 
priest  to  whom  you  resort  for  spiritual  counsel  and 
advice,  may  be  thoroughly  honest  and  sympathetic 
and  eager  to  help,  but  there  are  times  when  their 
knowledge  or  their  wisdom  fails  you.  Jesus  never 
failed.  Whatever  dark  burden  of  sin  men  brought 
to  him  was  relieved ;  whatever  idiot  child  or  para¬ 
lytic  friend  was  laid  at  his  feet  was  healed.  What¬ 
ever  tangled  skein  of  life  was  placed  in  his  hands 
was  unravelled.  There  was  never  any  failure  of 
counsel  or  helpfulness  or  sympathy.  His  person 
had  limitless  means  to  meet  every  occasion.  The 


5» 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


only  failure  was  the  failure  of  man  to  believe  in 
him,  to  trust  him,  to  obey  him.  The  only  thing 
he  required  of  men  was  a  limitless  trust.  “If  thou 
canst  believe,  all  things  are  possible  to  him  that 
believe^.’' 

Consider,  second  — 

There  are  no  other  terms  of  approach  to  Jesus 
to-day  than  there  were  when  the  father  brought  his 
child  to  him  with  his  pathetic  pleading.  We,  too, 
must  come  to  Jesus  in  the  same  unlimited  confi¬ 
dence  in  his  truth  and  willingness  to  help.  Life, 
though  it  is  now  illumined  by  the  revelation  of 
Jesus,  is  apt  to  become  to  us  a  sadly  tangled  af¬ 
fair;  our  ways  run  out  into  darkness;  we  can  no¬ 
where  find  healing  for  our  possessed  children,  we 
have  brought  them  to  the  disciples  and  they  do 
nothing  for  us;  and  in  our  perplexity,  cur  dis¬ 
tress,  our  sorrow,  we  are  going  away.  We  think 
we  have  tried  everything;  but  there  is  one  thing 
we  have  not  tried,  we  have  not  waited  for  Jesus. 
He  is  up  there  on  the  mountain,  but  if  we  wait  he 
will  come  to  us ;  our  prayers  will  draw  him 
down  and  then  if  we  meet  him  in  whole¬ 
hearted  self-surrender,  he  will  heal  us.  Our 
difficulty,  for  which  we  have  found  no  help 
on  earth,  will  be  no  difficulty  to  him.  But  be¬ 
ware  lest  we  meet  him  with  an  “if.”  Then  he  can 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH 


59 


not  help  at  all.  That  faith  which  is  not  faith,  but 
the  despair  that  is  willing  to  try  the  last  thing  that 
is  suggested,  will  not  avail  us.  We  must  put  our¬ 
selves  and  our  need  whole-heartedly  and  without 
reserve  into  his  hands.  Then  he  will  come  to  us  in 
the  power  of  Incarnate  God;  then  he  will  heal  our 
lame  and  our  blind  and  cast  out  our  devils  and 
raise  our  dead,  then  will  he  show  us  his  light  and 
his  truth  and  lead  us  and  bring  us  to  his  holy  hill 
and  to  his  dwelling.  Life  is  so  plain  and  easy 
when  once  we  have  trusted  in  him  without  reserve ; 
when  we  cease  to  think  of  the  morrow,  and  cast 
all  our  care  on  him,  knowing  that  he  careth  for  us. 

Let  us,  then,  pray  — 

That  we  may  not  falter  in  our  trust  in  Jesus. 
That  we  may  receive  his  truth  and  guide  our  lives 
by  it  without  withholding  anything. 

O  Almighty  and  Everlasting  God,  who  didst 
give  to  thine  Apostles  grace  truly  to  believe  and 
preach  thy  word;  grant,  we  beseech  thee,  unto  us 
thy  servants,  to  love  that  word  which  they  be¬ 
lieved,  and  faithfully  to  receive  the  same;  through 
Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord. 

•  •••••• 

Very  wonderful  is  the  universal  belief  in  God. 
Men  everywhere  have  sought  after  him  and  found 
him.  It  is  comparatively  unimportant  that  they 


6o 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


imaged  their  belief  in  God  in  strange  forms;  that 
they  divided  God,  so  to  say,  into  a  multitude  of 
gods ;  that  they  endowed  him  with  their  own  qual¬ 
ities,  and  thought  that  “He  was  such  an  one  as 
themselves.”  The  important  thing  is  not  that  they 
interpreted  their  experience  of  the  universe  crudely 
or  grotesquely,  but  that  they  were  so  sure  of  the 
meaning  of  their  experience,  that  back  of  the  shift¬ 
ing  phenomena  of  the  world  they  saw  God, — saw 
that  this  world  is  not  self-existent  and  that  its  in¬ 
completeness  and  unsatisfactoriness  implied  that 
which  would  explain  and  complete  it.  The  simple 
inference  that  the  uncultivated  man  made  from  the 
world  to  God  is  of  course  unsatisfactory,  indeed,. 

childish  to  the  cultured  man  of  to-day.  But  the 

* 

cultured  man  of  to-day  is  the  dupe  of  his  own  in¬ 
tellectual  subtlety.  Though  we  may  not  be  able 
to  prove  it,  the  inference  from  the  world  to  an  in¬ 
telligent  Creator  is  the  only  inference  that  gives  the 
world  any  meaning  or  life  any  significance.  This 
primitive  guess,  if  you  like  so  to  call  it,  has  been 
abundantly  justified  in  that  it  has  kept  man  in  the 
belief  that  the  world  is  a  spiritual  system,  and  on 
the  whole  saved  him  from  the  degradation  of 
materialism. 

To  me,  perhaps  the  most  wonderful  of  all  man’s 
instinctive  beliefs,  that  is,  beliefs  arrived  at  with¬ 
out  a  basis  of  experience,  is  the  belief  in  his  own 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH 


6l 


perfectibility.  All  along  man  has  had  a  vision  of 
human  perfection,  the  dream  of  a  perfect  man. 
Whether  he  has  placed  his  dream  in  the  past — in 
some  lost  Eden  or  vanished  Golden  Age — or  in  the 
future,  as  the  ideal  for  which  he  is  working,  he  has 
believed  that  he  is  now  imperfect  but  capable  of 
perfection.  He  has  found  his  present  always  un¬ 
satisfying,  unsatisfying,  I  mean,  as  an  expression 
of  himself.  He  might  and  ought  to  be  better;  he 
has  in  him  the  possibilities  of  greater  things.  This 
conviction  has  included  most  often  the  conviction 
that  God  meant  him  to  be  better,  and  that  his  pres¬ 
ent  state  spells  failure  and  sin.  He  expects  that 
sometime  his  vision  of  perfect  man  will  become 
reality.  How  are  we  to  account  for  this  insistent, 
haunting  conviction,  this  persistence  of  the  belief 
in  a  perfection  he  had  confessedly  never  seen?  I 
believe  it  to  be  the  pressure  of  the  Divine  that  is 
in  man  because  he  is  the  child  of  God,  made  in  his 
image,  after  his  likeness, — the  attempt  of  God  to 
raise  man  to  be  the  more  perfect  medium  of  his 
self-expresssion.  All  nature  is  but  the  clothing  of 
a  divine  thought.  And  in  man  that  thought  strug¬ 
gles  to  make  itself  vocal  and  intelligible. 

Thus  it  was  that  when  God’s  Thought,  his  Lo¬ 
gos,  expressed  itself  in  Christ,  man  recognized  the 
embodiment  of  his  dream,  the  justification  of  his 
vision.  Here  was  what  he  had  been  certain  of — 


6  2 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


human  perfection;  one  who  is  Perfect  Man  be¬ 
cause  he  is  perfectly  united  to  God.  The  instant 
and  abiding  fascination  of  the  Christ  lies  in  the 
fact,  we  are  told,  that  he  is  so  perfectly,  so  ideally 
human.  That  is  true  if  by  being  thus  ideally  hu¬ 
man  we  mean  that  man’s  conception  of  his  perfec¬ 
tion  includes  the  thought  that  the  perfect  man  is 
such,  not  by  the  completeness  of  his  animal  nature, 
but  by  the  perfection  of  his  spirit,  so  that  it  is  the 
means  of  union  and  communion  with  his  God. 
God  is  in  all  men,  but  attains  perfect  self-expres¬ 
sion  in  the  One  Perfect  Man  who  is  Christ.  And 
he  in  turn  is  the  earnest  and  promise  of  the  new 
advance  for  humanity,  in  that  through  him,  and  in 
him,  it  is  now  possible  for  all  men  to  be  united  with 
their  Father  who  is  in  heaven.  In  Christ  we 
recognize  a  revelation,  an  unfolding,  of  the  mean¬ 
ing  and  purpose  of  God. 

Before  the  Incarnation  of  our  Lord  there  had 
been  a  revelation  of  God.  There  had  been  that  dif¬ 
fused  and  indistinct  revelation  in  virtue  of  which 
man  had  become  conscious  of  God’s  presence  in  the 
universe  and  had  sought  to  learn  and  to  do  his 
will, — that  presence  that  they  had  felt  in  flower 
and  grass,  in  the  purling  brook  and  the  majesty  of 
the  ocean,  in  the  glory  of  flower-strewn  meadows 
and  the  awe  of  snow-crowned  mountain  peaks: 
that  insistent  self-assertion  of  God  which  they  had 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH 


63 


experienced  in  the  restlessness  of  their  moral  na¬ 
ture  and  the  trouble  of  their  conscience.  There 
had  been  for  some  a  clearer  revelation  in 
the  words  of  Prophet  and  Psalmist,  men  who  had 
declared  themselves  to  have  known  God,  to 
have  met  him  face  to  face,  and  to  have  been  sent 
by  him  as  the  revealers  of  his  will.  They  had  seen — 
but  of  what  God  was  like  there  is  no  report — only 
of  the  splendor  of  a  garment  of  light,  of  a  dim 
form  seen  through  incense  clouds,  the  gleam  of  a 
pavement  of  sapphire,  the  passing  of  a  throne  borne 
by  cherubim,  a  voice  speaking  out  of  the  heart  of 
the  storm.  But  they  brought  an  intelligible  mes¬ 
sage,  the  tenor  of  which  justified  itself  to  the  con¬ 
sciences  of  men,  a  message  of  mingled  hope  and 
fear.  It  was  the  revelation  of  a  divine  purity  and 
a  divine  justice  which  was  of  itself  a  rebuke  to  sin; 
a  call  to  repentance,  a  stimulant  to  holiness.  It 
centered  about  the  word  Father ,  and  called  men 
by  the  name  of  children,  and  thrilled  with  the  love 
that  that  relation  means.  But  the  Father  was  the 
high  and  Holy  One  who  inhabited  eternity,  and  the 
awful  obligation  of  sonship  was,  “Be  ye  holy  as  I 
am  holy.” 

And  then  came  the  Christ,  and  on  his  lips  revela¬ 
tion — the  message  of  the  Father — takes  a  new  form 
and  a  new  accent.  We  catch  the  difference  in  his 
own  assertion  about  himself :  “I  am  the  truth.’’  He 


64 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


presents  himself  to  us  as  the  embodiment  of  the 
truth  of  God.  Here  was  God,  seen  no  longer 
through  the  refracting  medium  of  instinctive  in¬ 
ferences,  or  the  interpretation  of  dream  and  vision, 
but  presented  to  man  in  the  only  way  he  can  under¬ 
stand  him,  in  an  Incarnate  life.  The  character  of 
God  is  seen  in  action.  Christ  does  not  tell  the 
truth  about  God ;  He  is  the  truth.  He  is  not  theory 
but  fact.  He  is  therefore  able  to  solve  the  doubts 
and  unweave  the  perplexities  that  cling  about 
men’s  thought  of  God.  Men  could  say  to  him: 
“Lord,  show  us  the  Father  and  it  sufficeth  us,” 
having  perfect  confidence  in  him.  And  he  could 
wonderfully  point  to  himself  as  embodying  the 
knowledge  they  seek:  “He  that  hath  seen  me  hath 
seen  the  Father/' 

So  men,  after  centuries  of  guesses  and  infer¬ 
ences.  of  blunders  and  partial  success,  can  know 
what  God  is.  God  is  what  Jesus  is.  Jesu^  shows, 
not  what  God  is  in  himself,  but  what  he  is  to  us, 
which  is  the  thing  we  want  to  know  and  need  to 
know.  When  we  are  studying  him  we  are  study¬ 
ing  the  Divine  Truth.  Men  could  not  be  with  him, 
they  cannot  study  him  now,  without  having  their 
thought  of  God  clarified.  And  there  was  so  much, 
and  still  is,  that  needs  clarifying.  We  feel  that  the 
men  who  passed  from  the  schools  of  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  to  associate  with  Jesus  must  have  felt 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH 


65 


that  they  were  passing  into  a  new  world — a  world 
where  values  were  altered  and  stresses  were 
changed,  and  all  things  were  become  new.  The 
pressure  of  invisible  law — law  that  haunted  and 
dogged  men's  footsteps  that  it  might  catch  them  in 
its  net — was  exchanged  for  the  love  and  sympathy 
that  treats  life  comprehendingly  and  tenderly,  and 
“willeth  not  that  any  should  perish.”  One  does  not 
feel  otherwise  to-day  as  one  passes  from  the  lec¬ 
ture  room  where  the  existence  of  “The  Absolute” 
is  triumphantly  established,  or  “The  Essential  At¬ 
tributes,”  of  God  are  explained,  to  the  quiet  of  the 
Gospels  where  the  truth  about  God  is  brought  home 
to  us  when  Jesus  says:  “I  and  the  Father  are  one,” 
“He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father,”  or, 
“The  Father  himself  loveth  you.”  That  God  is  the 
high  and  Holy  One  who  inhabited  eternity,  the 
transcendent  Creator,  is  not  denied :  but  the  stress 
is  on  the  immanent  God  who  is  manifested  in 
Jesus.  This  God  is  the  Great  Seeker.  In  Jesus  he 
comes  to  us,  and  abides  with  us  and  in  us.  “We 
will  come  to  him  and  make  our  abode  with  him.’’ 
The  revelation  of  God’s  nature  carries  us  even  be¬ 
yond  Fatherhood,  for  “God  is  love.’’ 

In  this  revelation  which  is  in  Jesus  not  only  is 
man’s  thought  about  God  cleared,  but  his  thought 
about  himself.  What  is  revealed  to  him,  first  of 
all,  is  not  the  darkness  and  horror  of  sin,  but  the 

(6) 


66 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


splendor  of  his  inheritance.  Man  is  the  child  of 
the  Father  who  is  love.  The  attitude  of  God  to¬ 
ward  him  is  that  which  he  perceives  in  the  attitude 
of  Jesus  towards  these  multitudes  who  throng  him, 
bringing  to  him  their  sick  and  impotent  and  luna¬ 
tics.  He  sees  God’s  dealings  with  him  when  lie 
sees  Jesus  having  compassion  upon  the  multitude, 
when  he  sees  him  taking  little  children  in  his  arms, 
when  he  hears  him  speaking  the  words  of  pardon 
over  the  bed  of  the  paralyzed  man.  We  feel  that 
those  ‘‘Publicans  and  Sinners”  who  followed  our 
Lord,  followed  so  closely,  so  insistently,  so  hope¬ 
fully,  because  for  the  first  time  they  were  learning 
that  they  were  not  abhorrent  to  God  and  outcasts 
from  the  kingdom  of  the  future.  The  love  of  God 
as  Jesus  manifested  it  was  a  love  for  them — warm, 
deep,  passionate.  They  were  the  Lost  Sheep  and 
the  Prodigal  Sons  of  his  parables;  and  so  thinking 
of  God,  so  seeing  God  in  Jesus,  they  took  hope 
for  themselves,  and  conceived  the  possibility  of  liv¬ 
ing  to  God’s  thought  for  them.  For  it  is  hope  that 
leads  men  to  repentance;  and  when  they  perceived 
that  God  still  hoped  for  them  they  began  lo  hope 
for  themselves.  They  were  not  made  careless  of 
sin ;  they  were  not  less  conscious  of  being  sinners, 
but  more.  For  they  now  read  the  truth  of  their 
lives,  not  through  the  eyes  of  Pharisaic  rigorists, 
at  whose  sneers  all  their  manhood  revolted,  but 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH 


67 


through  the  words  of  one  pitiful  and  tender, 
whose  very  tenderness  revealed  to  them  the  mean¬ 
ing,  the  blackness,  of  their  sin.  Hatred  and  dis¬ 
gust  repel  the  sinner;  it  is  only  love  that  draws. 

What  I  want  to  make  clear,  is  the  actual  effect 
of  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ — what  13  the 
impression  it  has  made  on  human  life.  The  eas¬ 
iest  and  most  decisive  way  of  finding  what  this  im¬ 
pression  was  is  to  open  our  New  Testaments.  If 
we  attempt  a  classification  of  the  books  of  the  New 
Testament  with  a  view  to  ascertaining  the  effect  of 
Christ,  we  shall  find  that  those  books  fall  easily  in¬ 
to  three  classes.  First  the  synoptics;  that  is,  the 
Gospels  of  St.  Matthew,  St.  Mark  and  St.  Luke. 
Second  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul.  Third  the  Gospel 
of  St.  John.  No  doubt  the  rest  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  might  be  ranged  under  one  or  the  other  of 
these  classes,  but  for  our  present  purpose  it  is  un¬ 
necessary  to  extend  the  classification  further. 

If  one  takes  the  first  three  Gospels  and  reads 
them  over  several  times  for  the  purpose  of  getting 
a  fresh  impression  of  their  presentations  of  the 
life  of  our  Lord,  one  rises  from  the  reading  tre¬ 
mendously  impressed  by  the  uniqueness  of  our 
Lord's  humanity.  Here  is  one  in  all  respects 
“Like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin.’'  The  qualities 
we  have  learned  to  admire  in  man  are  there  in  their 
highest  potency;  and  there  are  others,  that  per- 


68 


THE  SELF -REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


haps,  we  have  not  learned  to  admire,  but  we  are 
sure,  as  we  see  them  in  our  Lord,  that  they  are  al¬ 
together  admirable.  We  are  quite  certain  that 
here  is  the  ideal  of  man ;  that  perfect  expression  of 
what  man  had  all  along  felt  that  he  ought  to  be, 
that  we  have  already  noted  as  one  of  the  mysteries 
of  human  thought.  Christ  moves  on  the  pages  of 
the  Synoptics  through  all  the  setting  of  his  life, 
from  its  idyllic  opening  to  its  tragic  close,  complete¬ 
ly  the  master  of  every  situation  in  which  we  find 
him.  There  is  nothing  tentative  or  experimental 
about  him.  He  meets  each  situation  which  life 
presents  to  him  with  unfailing  resource  of  thought 
and  action.  No  crisis  is  so  difficult  as  to  cause 
him  a  moment’s  perplexity-;  there  is  no  plot  of  his 
enemies  of  which  he  does  not  see  the  meaning  at  a 
glance.  There  is  no  situation,  whether  the  out¬ 
come  of  human  sin  or  folly  or  misfortune,  which 
he  does  not  meet  readily :  no  one  ever  asks  his  help 
or  counsel  and  finds  him  unprepared.  And  we  do 
not  feel  that  this  is  a  matter  of  quick-wittedness  or 
of  careful  training  or  of  acquired  insight,  but  is 
the  natural  outcome  of  his  perfect  humanity — that 
we  fail  where  he  succeeds  because  we  are  defec¬ 
tive  where  he  is  perfect.  We  have  never  before 
seen  perfect  man,  but  we  are  certain  that  we  see 
him  now — that  this  is  the  way  in  which  all  men 
would  act  if  they  were  perfect. 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH 


69 


But  it  comes  to  us,  too,  as  we  turn  again  and 
again  the  pages  of  these  Gospels,  that  there  is  an 
element  in  the  character  and  action  of  Christ  which 
is  beyond  anything  that  we  can  attribute  to  human 
perfection.  And  this  element  is  not  simply  or 
chiefly  the  miraculous  element — we  can  conceive 
that  perfect  man  would  have  some  such  command 
over  the  resources  of  the  natural  world  as  Christ 
displays — it  is  rather  a  growing  sense  that  we  gain 
of  the  nearness  and  closeness  of  his  life  to  God. 
This  more-than-human  element  in  the  Christ  is  the 
result  of  the  intimacy  of  his  union  with  God.  In¬ 
deed,  what  we  are  dealing  with  is  not  union  but 
unity.  He  has  not  risen  through  the  purification 
of  his  nature  to  union  with  God,  but  he  is  God — 
he  and  the  Father  are  one.  We  could  infer  that, 
with  some  hesitation,  from  the  first  three  Gospels 
without  the  explicit  testimony  of  the  fourth. 

Turn  now  to  another  strand  of  New  Testament 
experience,  that  which  is  embodied  in  the  writings 
of  St.  Paul ;  and  remember  that  the  writings  of  St. 
Paul  precede  the  Gospels  and  represent  an  inde¬ 
pendent  experience  of  our  Lord.  In  the  experi¬ 
ence  of  St.  Paul  the  historical  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
plays  almost  no  part.  I  do  not  at  all  mean  that 
St.  Paul  was  ignorant  of  the  facts  of  our  Lord’s 
earthly  life  or  considered  them  of  no  importance. 
He  indeed  stresses  as  of  primary  importance  our 


7° 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


Lord’s  death  and  Resurrection.  But  I  mean  his 
experience  is  not  the  outcome  of  meditation  upon 
the  history,  but  is  the  result  of  a  personal  relation 
to  our  Lord  himself.  The  Jesus  whom  St.  Paul 
presents  to  us  is  indeed  the  same  Jesus  who  was 
born  at  Bethlehem  and  crucified  on  Calvary;  but 
in  St.  Paul’s  experience  he  is  Risen  and  Ascended 
and  seated  at  the  Right  Hand  of  the  Father.  The 
Risen  Jesus  is  central  in  the  thought  and  life  of 
St.  Paul,  as  one  always  present  to  him,  very  life 
of  his  life. 

Christianity  to  St.  Paul  is  a  matter  of  having 
found  the  Way,  and  being  in  Christ.  The  “con¬ 
versation”  of  the  Christian  is  “in  heaven”  where 
his  “life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God.”  Jesus  is  the 
truth  of  God,  and  we  know  the  truth  “in  Jesus.” 
It  is  our  experience  of  the  Living  Christ,  not  our 
memories  of  the  dead  Christ,  which  St.  Paul 
stresses.  To  his  religion  that  experience  is  cen¬ 
tral. 

Turn  to  another  strand  of  New  Testament 
thought,  this  time  to  the  Gospel  of  St.  John.  St. 
John  writes  long  after  the  Synoptics  and  St.  Paul 
have  finished  their  work.  The  facts  of  our  Lord’s 
human  life,  and  the  facts  of  spiritual  experience 
which  are  the  outcome  of  the  Christian’s  relation 
to  the  Living  and  Ascended  Christ,  are  both  fam¬ 
iliar  to  the  Christian  consciousness.  What  St.  John 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH 


71 


writes  is  less  a  history  of  our  Lord’s  life,  than  a  med¬ 
itation  upon  it.  In  his  writings  we  see  the  strand  of 
history  and  the  strand  of  spiritual  experience  inter¬ 
twined.  St.  John  dwells  upon  the  historical  facts  of 
the  life  of  Jesus,  but  his  presentation  of  them  is 
colored  by  his  experience  of  the  Risen  and  As¬ 
cended  Jesus.  The  depth  and  intimacy  of  his 
knowledge  of  our  Lord’s  mind  and  thought  is  de¬ 
rived,  we  feel,  from  the  closeness  of  his  inter¬ 
course  with  him  in  his  heavenly  state.  Even  St. 
John  could  not  have  written  such  a  book  on  the 
morrow  of  the  Resurrection ;  it  is  the  ripe  fruit  of 
many  years  of  spiritual  living  in  Christ.  Yet  we 
feel,  do  we  not?  as  we  rise  from  meditation  on  St. 
John’s  gospel,  that  this  is  the  truest,  that  is,  the 
most  complete,  presentation  of  the  truth  of  Christ. 
“That  which  was  from  the  beginning,  which  we 
have  heard,  which  we  have  seen  with  our  eyes,  which 
we  have  looked  upon,  and  our  hands  have  handled, 
of  the  word  of  life  .  .  .  that  which  we  have  seen 
and  heard  declare  we  unto  you.”  But  the  seeing 
and  the  hearing  and  the  handling  have  been  en¬ 
riched  and  interpreted  by  many  years  of  medita¬ 
tion  and  contemplation  and  spiritual  appropriation, 
before  they  have  been  written  in  the  wonderful 
pages  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The  writer  has  not 
only  gained  in  spiritual  apprehension  as  he  dwelt 
lovingly  on  the  days  when,  as  the  disciple  whom 


72 


TPIE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


Jesus  loved,  he  lived  in  closest  intimacy  with  his 
Master ;  he  has  not  only  gone  deep,  by  devout 
thought,  into  the  meaning  of  the  work  that  had  be¬ 
held  and  the  sorrows  that  he  in  some  sense  shared ; 
but  he  who  leaned  upon  the  Master’s  breast  at  the 
Supper,  and  stood  watching  his  agony  upon  the 
Cross,  and  was  a  witness  to  his  empty  tomb,  has 
also  seen  the  heaven  open  and  beheld  the  Master 
whom  he  had  known  and  loved  as  an  earthly 
friend,  throned  in  glory,  the  center  and  object  of 
the  worship  of  angels  and  archangels  and  all  the 
company  of  heaven,  and  has  been  the  messenger  of 
the  Risen  Jesus  to  all  generations  of  his  Church  on 
earth.  This  knowledge,  this  experience,  this  truth, 
is  reflected  back  on  the  pages  of  the  Gospel  till 
they  glow  with  the  jewelled  light  of  the  heavenly 
world. 

As  we  come  back  from  this  imperfect  glance  at 
the  New  Testament  interpretation  of  the  life  of 
our  Lord  we  necessarily  ask  ourselves  if  there  is 
anything  in  our  own  experience  which  at  all  cor¬ 
responds  with  the  Apostolic  experience.  And  I 
think  we  can  find  that  this  is  indeed  the  case.  Any 
Christian  experience  that  approaches  completeness 
will  be  found  to  be  as  complete  an  experience  as  was 
that  of  St.  John.  There  is  in  it  a  certain  intellec¬ 
tual  element  of  knowledge  about  Christ  which  is 
founded  upon  our  study  of  the  gospel.  We  have 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH 


73 


become  familiar  with  the  history  of  Jesus  of  Naz¬ 
areth,  we  have  learned  to  see  in  him  the  mirror  of 
human  perfection.  The  incidents  of  that  life  are 
part  of  our  daily  thought,  the  food  of  our  daily 
meditation.  We  have  learned  to  guide  our  life  by 
his  teaching  and  to  feel  that  the  imitation  of  Christ 
is  essential  to  the  Christian.  That  is  one  aspect  of 
our  Christian  experience;  but  if  the  experience  is 
real  it  does  not  stop  there.  There  mingles  with  it 
and  colors  it  and  vivifies  it  an  experience  of 
Jesus  as  he  is  nozv ;  an  experience  of  Jesus,  living 
and  ascended,  and  through  his  glorified  humanity 
entering  into  union  and  communion  with  us.  This 
is  what  we  are  wont  to  call  our  spiritual  experi¬ 
ence ,  that  is,  the  certainty  that  we  have  that  we  are 
in  Christ  and  he  in  us.  This  certainty  of  a  present 
action  of  Christ  in  us  attends  and  underlies  all  our 
spiritual  life;  indeed  there  is  no  need  of  the  limit¬ 
ation,  it  underlies  all  our  acts.  This  conscious¬ 
ness  of  Jesus  as  the  stimulating  and  directing 
power  of  our  lives  (and  we  need  not  in  any  case 
pause  to  analyze  an  act  to  find  how  much  of  our 
certainty  is  due  to  our  memory  of  his  teaching  and 
how  much  to  our  Lord’s  direct  action)  is  con¬ 
sciousness  of  him  as  the  Truth.  The  reference  of 
all  our  lives  to  him  means  that  we  find  in  him  the 
Truth,  and  that  by  that  discovery  we  are  delivered 


74 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


from  the  bondage  of  error  and  are  made  free  with 
the  liberty  of  the  children  of  God. 

This  reliance  upon  Christ  as  known  in  our  ex¬ 
perience  lies  at  the  root  of  our  practical,  every¬ 
day  conduct.  It  affords  an  ever-ready  reference 
for  the  details  of  conduct.  Such  reference  be¬ 
comes  instinctive  and  almost  unnoted  to  such  a 
degree  that  often  times  we  should  have  some  diffi¬ 
culty  in  explaining  why  we  act  in  a  certain  way,  so 
deeply  hidden  in  our  nature  has  become  the  ulti¬ 
mate  ground  for  decision.  It  is  not  infrequent  to 
find  people  alleging  purely  surface  reasons  for 
their  conduct,  reasons  plainly  thought  of  at  the 
time,  when  it  is  clear  that  the  true  reason  was  a 
spiritual  instinct  born  of  their  spiritual  knowledge 
of  the  truth.  One  is  confronted  with  the  fact  that 
one  does  not  indulge  in  certain  amusements  or 
luxuries,  and  is  asked  abruptly  to  decide  if  they  are 
right  or  wrong.  And  one  finds  the  decision  diffi¬ 
cult  because  one  is  obliged  to  shift  one’s  canons  of 
judgment  to  another  plane.  One  is  obliged  to  put 
oneself  on  the  plane  of  one’s  questioner  and  base 
an  answer  on  reasons  that  one  never  uses.  We 
find  it  difficult  to  translate  our  feelings  of  attrac¬ 
tion  or  repulsion  into  the  rough  and  ready  rules  of 
good  and  bad.  We  are  not  always  conscious  of 
the  judgment  bad  concerning  that  which  we  avoid, 
or  of  the  judgment  good,  in  regard  to  that  which 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH 


75 


we  do.  A  law,  a  rule,  a  maxim,  can  be,  at  best, 
only  a  very  crude  test,  and  a  very  imperfect  guide. 
An  author  cannot  always  tell  why  he  uses  one  word 
rather  than  another;  the  rules  of  grammar  admit¬ 
ted  either ;  but  he  feels  that  the  word  he  used  is 
the  right  one.  Style  is  a  matter  of  feeling  rather 
than  of  rule.  The  painter  cannot  tell  why  he 
heightened  that  light  or  put  a  little  more  purple  in¬ 
to  that  shadow,  but  he  feels  that  it  had  to  be  done 
— as  it  stood  it  made  him  a  little  uneasy.  You 
do  not  see  any  difference,  but  he  feels  that  there 
is  one.  So  in  the  shaping  of  our  conduct,  the 
choice  of  our  words,  the  selection  of  our  amuse¬ 
ments,  we  may  find  it  difficult  to  produce  a  rule  on 
demand;  but  we  feel  that  there  is  a  difference. 
And  this  difference,  in  the  case  of  the  Christian,  is 
most  likely  no  producible  law  of  God  or  maxim  of 
the  gospel,  such  as  the  critic  demands,  but  a 
feeling  of  the  mind  of  Jesus.  Our  decisions  in 
matters  of  truth  and  beauty  and  goodness  are  only 
partially  the  result  of  a  knowledge  of  the  teaching 
of  Jesus ;  they  are  rather  the  result  of  an  experi¬ 
ence  of  him.  Such  instinctive  decisions  grow  more 
delicate  and  refined  as  experience  broadens  and 
deepens,  and  also  more  difficult  to  give  an  account 
of  even  to  ourselves.  But  if  we  can  give  no  ade¬ 
quate  account  of  them,  we  hold  them  in  absolute 
certainty,  we  follow  them  without  any  shadow  of 


7 6  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

9 

fear.  We  are  certain  that  in  such  decisions  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  is  with  us,  and  that  we  have  his 
mind.  The  law  may  have  left  us  its  freedom ;  but 
we  are  concerned  only  with  the  liberty  wherewith 
Christ  has  made  us  free. 

I  suppose  that  at  times  we  all  find  that  the  rules 
of  conduct  of  morals,  that  we  have  learned,  break 
down  in  this  sense — that  we  find  them  inadequate 
to  guide  life.  It  is  only  a  life  of  very  elemental  ex¬ 
periences  that  can  be  measured  by  rule.  It  is  the 
fact,  indeed,  that  the  mechanical  measurements  of 
material  things  are  but  approximate:  the  ideal  re¬ 
sult  we  get  by  mathematics  will  not  quite  fit  any 
concrete  case.  In  applying  the  result  to  materials 
there  must  be  some  allowance  made  which  repre¬ 
sents  a  lack  of  correspondence  between  formula 
and  fact.  So  in  the  application  of  rules  to  life 
there  has  to  be  an  allowance  made  for  the  infinite 
variety  of  life.  The  rule  is  invariable,  life  always 
varies.  This  is  the  perplexity  of  the  unspiritual 
person — he  finds  the  rule  breaks  down  and  there  is 
nothing  to  supplement  it  with.  One  of  the  marked 
differences  between  the  unspiritual  and  the  spirit¬ 
ual  person  lies  precisely  here;  that  the  spiritual 
person  has  back  of  and  beyond  all  rules  a  sense  of 
conformity ,  a  certainty  of  the  correspondence  of 
his  life  with  the  mind  of  Christ  or  of  its  failure  so 
to  do.  The  unspiritual  person  has  no  instinct  of 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH 


77 


conformity.  If  I  am  asked,  how  this  sense  of  con¬ 
formity  is  attained,  I  should  say  that  it  is  the  out¬ 
come  of  the  life  of  union,  the  result  of  living  in 
Christ.  We  appropriate  the  point  of  view,  the 
mind,  of  those  with  whom  we  are  intimate.  You 
see  this  manner  of  imitation  in  the  child  who  un¬ 
consciously  appropriates  the  gestures,  the  tricks  of 
speech,  of  father  or  friend.  There  was  no  con¬ 
scious  learning;  it  is  just  a  matter  of  association, 
of  intimacy.  The  way  in  which  our  Christian  lives 
are  shaped  is,  too,  a  matter  of  being  tilled  with  the 
Spirit  of  Christ,  and  the  extent  in  which  his  life  is, 
often  unconsciously,  repeated  in  ours.  I  do  not 
mean  that  there  is  no  need  of  effort;  there  is  need 
of  constant  effort  to  appropriate  the  “truth  as  it  is 
in  Jesus/’  But  if  our  effort  is  to  be  successful,  it 
must  carry  us  beyond  conscious  imitation,  it  must 
spring  out  of  personal  love  which  is  the  true  me¬ 
dium  through  which  we  arrive  at  the  understand¬ 
ing  of  another’s  mind. 

I  am  of  course  speaking  of  those  things  that  are 
subtle  and  delicate,  lying  outside  the  rough  distinc¬ 
tions,  true  and  false,  right  or  wrong.  I  have  in 
mind  principally  that  sort  of  selection  within  the 
allowable  which  becomes  a  necessity  to  those 
whose  mind  is  to  press  on  toward  sanctity.  We 
think  of  the  lives  of  those  who  are  approaching 
sanctity  as  becoming  more  and  more  simplified. 


78 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


There  is  a  process  of  detachment  going  on  within 
them,  which  results  in  their  separating  themselves 
increasingly  from  the  ordinary  interests  of  life. 
The  circumstances  of  their  lives  may  not  admit  of 
an  exterior  separation,  but  there  is  a  separation  of 
the  inner  life  which  becomes  “hid  with  Christ.’' 
The  essential  interests  of  life  become  fewer, 
less  and  less  do  they  cling  to  things.  It  is 
enough  for  them  that  they  see  Jesus,  and  their  in¬ 
terest  in  their  fellows  is  that  they  see  Jesus  in 
them.  Hence  the  curious  phenomena  that  they 
have  not  less  interest  in  the  world,  or  are  less 
given  to  good  works,  but  their  interest  and  activ¬ 
ity  is  intensified.  A  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  or  a 
Father  Stanton  give  themselves  utterly  to  minis¬ 
try  just  because  their  lives  are  simplified  to  the  ex¬ 
tent  that  they  have  no  interest  but  Jesus.  To  them 
Jesus  is  constantly  manifesting  himself  in  his  mem¬ 
bers,  and  the  service  of  the  members  is  the  service 
of  him.  This  is  the  true  social  service,  that  co¬ 
operates  with  the  manifestation  of  the  life  of 
Jesus  in  the  least  of  his  members  and  strives  that 
the  truth  which  is  in  Jesus  may  prevail  in  all  the 
dark  places  of  the  world.  It  is  not  men  who  are 
bound  to  material  interests  who  can  do  this,  but 
those  whose  spirit  of  detachment  has  freed  all  their 
powers,  to  the  end  of  their  utter  consecration. 

For  to  see  the  meaning  of  Jesus  is  to  see  the 


I  AM  THE  TRUTH 


79 


truth  about  this  world — that  it  is  the  one  sphere  of 
his  activity  with  which  we  are  now  concerned — 
the  sphere  in  which  is  being  built  the  Body  of  his 
Incarnate  Life.  His  activity  has  for  its  end  his 
self-manifestation  in  the  lives  of  men.  If  we  have 
once  grasped  this  there  is  no  danger  of  our  being 
slack  in  well  doing.  This  world  becomes  the  stage 
of  a  fascinating  drama  wherein  we  see  the  ven¬ 
tures,  the  victories  of  faith,  and  its  disasters, 
too.  One’s  association  with  the  truth,  one’s  sense 
of  personal  responsibility,  in  guarding  it,  one’s 
sight  of  the  pitiful  life  of  men  who  so  much  need 
it  give  one  that  sense  of  mission  which  lies  back  of 
the  Apostles,  “woe  is  me,  if  I  preach  not  the  gos¬ 
pel.”  The  truth  of  God — “the  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus” — is  the  only  thing  which  can  bring  any  per¬ 
manent  relief  or  comfort  to  the  lives  of  men.  The 
remedies  that  we  are  applying  so  abundantly  and 
so  hopefully  to  the  ills  of  the  world  to-day,  are 
merely  palliatives.  The  trouble  with  the  world  is 
that  it  needs  the  light  of  truth  to  guide  it  into 
peace  with  God.  Our  vocation  as  Christians  is  to 
let  that  light  shine  through  us  “that  men  may  see 
our  good  works  and  glorify  our  Father  in  heaven.” 
We  must  shine :  it  must  be  impossible  to  doubt  that 
we,  at  least,  have  found  the  truth  that  solves  the 
problems  of  life  and  puts  us  in  harmony  with  God. 
The  Christian  whose  grasp  of  the  truth  is  vague  and 


8o 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


uncertain,  whose  testimony  lacks  the  note  of  per¬ 
sonal  conviction,  who  shrinks  from  the  open  and 
joyous  profession  of  it  before  men,  is  falling  far 
short  of  the  obligations  of  life  which  he  has  re¬ 
ceived  from  the  truth  abundantly,  that  he  might 
give  it  freely.  We  cannot  expect  the  world  to  be 
converted  to  a  faith  which  is  constantly  apologetic 
and  asks  for  bare  tolerance.  It  will  only  be  con¬ 
verted  to  a  faith  that  is  so  certain  that  it  dares  to 
stand  alone  before  a  hostile  world. 


I  AM  THE  LIFE. 

Let  us  listen  to  the  zvords  of  our  Lord  — 
I  Am  the  Life. 


And  let  us  try  to  picture  to  ourselves  — 

©UR  Lord  and  his  disciples  meeting  the  funeral 
procession  outside  the  gate  of  Nain.  The 
sadness  of  the  scene  is  brought  home  to 
us  in  the  words,  “he  is  the  only  son  of 
his  mother,  and  she  was  a  widow.”  Her 
bereavement  had  called  out  the  one  human 
source  of  helpfulness — sympathy.  “And  much 

people  of  the  city  was  with  her.”  We  see 
them,  these  good  friends,  offering  what  words  they 
could,  and  where  there  were  no  words,  by  silent 
looks  and  hand-pressure,  making  their  fellow- 
feeling  known.  How  helpless  we  feel  at  such  times 
whether  in  word  or  in  silence.  Nothing  could 

81 


(7) 


82 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


help  much  while  the  silent  body  was  borne  there 
before  the  mother’s  eyes  on  the  open  bier.  In  the 
isolation  of  their  grief  they  would  have  paid  no  at¬ 
tention  to  this  other  group  coming  towards  the 
city.  Could  they  have  known  what  was  there  for 
them  how  they  would  have  hastened  their  steps. 
Into  the  midst  of  the  mother’s  grief,  God  was 
coming.  God  can  be  so  near,  and  we  know  it  not. 
“And  he  said  unto  her,  Weep  not.  And  he  came 
and  touched  the  bier ;  and  they  that  bare  him  stood 
still.”  Their  first  impression  would  have  been 
one  of  unauthorized  interference ;  but  that  would 
pass  as  their  wondering  eyes  rested  on  the  face  of 
him  “who  had  compassion  on  her.”  The  grave 
kindness  and  sympathy  of  his  look  would  them¬ 
selves  show  that  he  was  not  acting  without  reason. 
And  then  the  word  of  power:  “Young  man,  I  say 
unto  thee,  Arise.’’  What  can  express  the  glad 
wonder  of  the  mother’s  heart  as  “he  that  was  dead 
sat  up,  and  began  to  speak.”  In  her  heart  there 
was  no  place  for  the  astonishment  and  fear  that 
fell  on  the  others.  She  can  have  had  but  one 
feeling;  a  passionate  love  that  goes  out  to  her  boy 
which  would  for  the  moment  make  her  oblivious 
to  all  else,  even  the  presence  of  him  who  had 
brought  her  child  back  to  life.  “And  he  delivered 
him  to  his  mother.” 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


83 


Consider,  -first  — 

That  we  come  to  the  contemplation  of  this  scene 
with  the  knowledge  and  experience  of  our  Lord 
that  centuries  have  given.  We  have  learned  to 
think  of  him  as  of  one  who  has  absolute  mastery 
over  all  life  and  death.  What  he  says  of  his  own 
life,  “I  have  power  over  my  life  to  lay  it  down  and 
to  take  it  again,”  extends  to  all  other  lives.  He  is 
the  Prince  of  Life.  What  fascinates  us  about  the 
story  is  not  so  much  the  exemplification  of  a  well- 
known  truth,  as  the  circumstances  under  which  his 
power  is  here  exercised.  We  get  used  to  the 
thought  of  the  divine  power;  we  never  get  so  far 
as  to  grow  cold  to  the  wonder  of  the  divine  sym¬ 
pathy.  This  is  what  is  constantly  new  to  us :  That 
the  divine  power  is  impelled  to  action  by  the  divine 
sympathy.  It  is  the  same  lesson  that  we  learn  as 
we  stand  with  the  three  chosen  disciples  in  the 
chamber  of  Jairus,  and  see  Jesus  take  the  maid  by 
the  hand,  and  say  to  her,  “Arise.”  Or  when  again 
we  stand  by  the  weeping  sisters  at  the  tomb  of 
Lazarus,  and  hear  him  say,  “Lazarus,  Come  forth.’* 
There  are  but  few  miracles  in  the  whole  Gospel 
record  behind  which  we  cannot  read  the  sympathy 
of  God.  The  thought  that  we  get  is ;  That  the 
power  of  our  Lord,  his  mastery  over  life  and  death, 
is  a  power  that  is  directed  by  sympathy  and  love; 


84  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

that  it  is  called  into  activity  by  the  needs  of  the 
children  of  men.  And  we  can  conclude,  can  we 
not?  that  it  is  not  a  power  called  out  by  one  need 
here  and  there,  but  that  it  is  always  being  exercised 
with  reference  to  our  lives,  whether  we  perceive  it 
or  not.  It  may  have  been  that  the  same  day  an¬ 
ther  body  was  borne  out  of  the  gate  of  Nain,  and 
no  hand  touched  the  bier  to  stay  it  as  it  went  to 
the  place  of  burial;  but  none  the  less  the  sympathy 
and  love  of  the  Lord  went  with  it,  and  those  who 
followed,  weeping.  The  great  thing  is  not  to  see 
the  power  of  God,  but  to  be  sure  of  his  love. 

Consider ,  second  — 

That  the  presence  of  our  Lord  in  our  lives  to¬ 
day  is  the  resurrection  of  dead  things.  His  touch 
is  a  vivifying  touch.  There  are  in  all  our  lives, 
dead  or  dying  things;  things  that  range  from  the 
soul  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins,  to  the  discourage¬ 
ment  and  weariness  of  waning  hopes,  unsatisfied 
longings,  perishing  aspirations.  There  are  mo¬ 
ments  when  our  spiritual  life  seems  stale  and  flat 
and  meaningless;  when  the  sense  of  what  we  have 
not  accomplished  over-shadows  our  positive  gain. 
It  is  so  great  a  thing  to  be  a  Christian  and  we  have 
made  so  little  out  of  it.  We  had  hoped  so  much, 
and  to-day  we  see  our  dead  hopes  borne  out  of 
the  gate  of  the  city.  But  if  we  so  will  it,  they  need 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


85 


not  go  to  their  burial.  There  is  one  that  can  bid 
the  bier  stay  and  can  speak  over  them  the  word  cf 
life;  one  whose  sympathy  and  love  lingers  over 
these  seemingly  dead  things  and  is  nearer  to  them 
than  to  our  successes,  because  they  heed  him  more. 
Perhaps  our  spiritual  life  has  grown  dim  because 
we  have  forgotten  how  much  it  depends  on  him. 
Spiritual  vitality  is  maintained  only  so  long  as  we 
are  in  energetic  contact  with  the  source  of  all  life. 
More  energetic  life  is  closer  clinging  to  Jesus  with 
the  clasp  that  will  not  let  him  go  until  he  bless  us. 
In  all  our  experience,  however  dark  or  disastrous, 
he  is  there  by  the  side,  within  the  reach  of  our 
hands,  within  the  touch  of  our  faith,  within  the  ap¬ 
peal  of  our  needs.  He  will  not  pass,  if  we  want 
him.  “I  am  the  life,”  he  says ;  that  life,  which  en¬ 
tering  within  our  life,  shall  become  a  living  foun¬ 
tain  of  mercy  vitalizing  all  the  stagnant  back¬ 
waters  of  our  experience.  If  you  will  bring  your 
failures  to  him,  you  shall  have  them  restored  from 
the  dead,  and  transformed  into  successes. 

Let  us,  then  pray  — 

For  deepened  spiritual  life.  For  the  touch  cf 
faith  that  will  enable  us  to  lay  hold  on  eternal  life. 

O  God,  Who  by  Thine  Only-begotten  Son  hast 
overcome  death,  and  opened  unto  us  the  gate  of 
everlasting  life;  grant  us,  we  beseech  Thee,  that 


86 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


the  power  of  Thy  Son’s  Resurrection,  may  be  the 
renewing  of  our  spirit,  and  the  resurrection  of 
our  souls  from  the  dead;  through  the  same  Thy 
Son  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

•  «••••• 

“That  which  was  made  in  him  was  life,  and  the 
life  was  the  light  of  men.”  St.  John  describes  our 
Lord  as  the  Divine  and  Eternal  Logos  through 
whom  all  things  exist,  entering  the  world  of  hu¬ 
manity  in  the  very  act  of  creation,  and  by  the  im- 
partation  of  himself  to  man  making  men  the  par¬ 
takers  of  his  own  Divine  Life.  This  life  in  man 
is  converted  into  light — the  inextinguishable  light 
of  the  Divine  Presence — which  struggles  with  the 
mysterious  darkness  of  evil,  but  proves  itself  un¬ 
conquerable  :  “The  darkness  overcame  it  not.”  He 
is  the  True  Light  which  lighteneth  every  man  who 
comes  into  the  world.  But  though  the  darkness 
could  not  conquer,  it  effected  ignorance  and  pro¬ 
cured  the  rejection  of  the  Light  by  many  who 
were  the  Light’s  own.  Then  the  Logos  drew 
nearer  to  humanity,  veiled  himself  in  the  garment 
of  man’s  flesh,  became  Incarnate  and  dwelt  among 
us,  and  to  as  many  as  received  him  the  darkness 
broke,  and  they  became  in  a  new  and  higher  sense 
God’s  sons,  and  beheld  the  glory  of  the  Incarnate 
God  and  abide  in  him  forever. 

The  result  of  the  self-impartation  of  God  In- 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


*7 


carnate  to  men  whereby  men  receive  power  to  be¬ 
come  the  sons  of  God,  St.  John  calls  eternal  life. 
Eternal  life,  therefore,  is  not  an  indefinite  exten¬ 
sion  of  the  natural  life  under  new  conditions — it  is 
not  the  progress  and  perfecting  of  that  natural  life 
through  conformity  to  the  will  of  God,  as  you 
might  cultivate  a  plant  more  and  more,  till  its  blos¬ 
soms  become  larger  and  fairer — it  is  rather  a  new 
gift  to  man  due  to  a  new  action  of  God,  a  new  self¬ 
manifestation  of  God,  so  that  man  can  now  be 
called  a  new  Creation — “a  new  Creation  in  Christ 
Jesus.”  Man  is  thereby  lifted  to  a  new  state  of 
being,  that  state  which  we  call  spiritual,  not  be¬ 
cause  he  is  animated  by  new  desires,  or  has  gained 
a  new  outlook  on  life,  or  become  possessed  of  a 
new  set  of  principles,  but  because  he  has  had  com¬ 
municated  to  him  a  new  energy  in  that  he  has  been 
made  one  with  Christ  and  the  life  of  Christ  func¬ 
tions  through  him.  As  the  mysterious  life  of  the 
body  makes  itself  known  by  its  manifestation  in 
each  member  of  the  body,  giving  it  the  power  to 
do  its  work ;  so  the  life  of  Incarnate  God,  into  whom 
we  are  taken  and  of  whom  we  are  made  members, 
manifests  itself  in  each  child  of  his — manifests  it¬ 
self  in  the  acts  which  we  call  spiritual  and  which 
are  the  reactions  of  our  spiritual  nature  to  the 
stimulus  of  his  presence. 

This  life  of  the  Incarnate  which  is  imparted  to 


88 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


us  functions  in  us  even  though  we  are  unconscious 
of  its  presence  and  the  meaning  of  the  consequent 
actions.  I  talk  with  a  boy  about  his  religious  life. 
He  tells  me  that  he  goes  beyond  the  routine  pray¬ 
ers  which  have  been  taught  him  and  says  prayers 
“in  his  own  words.”  He  cannot  give  me  any  clear 
notion  of  the  meaning  of  that,  but  I  know.  I  know 
that  the  indwelling  presence  of  Jesus  is  awakening 
in  him  spiritual  desire  which  expresses  itself  in  the 
beginning  of  the  life  of  prayer:  he  has  uncon¬ 
sciously  translated  the  impulse  Godward  that  his 
soul  guest  gives  him  into  the  terms  of  his  own 
need.  The  boy  tells  me  that  he  would  like  to 
make  his  communion  more  often.  I  do  not  push 
him  to  say  why — he  could  most  likely  not  put  the 
“why”  into  words ;  but  I  know  why.  The  Incar¬ 
nate  God  he  has  received  in  his  communions  is 
drawing  him  into  closer  intimacy,  is  making  him¬ 
self  felt  with  a  tender  attractiveness  that  is  trans¬ 
lated  in  the  boy’s  consciousness  as  a  dim  love.  He 
tells  me  that  he  has  overcome  the  impulses  of  the 
flesh,  and  I  know  that  the  all-pure  Jesus  is  strength¬ 
ening  him  against  temptation  and  imparting  to 
him  the  love  of  purity. 

In  later  life  we  find  the  same  phenomena  in  an 
increased  attraction  to  the  things  that  are  spiritual. 
Even  here  it  is  not  necessary  that  we  should  have 
clearness  and  distinctness  in  the  analysis  of  our 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


89 


spiritual  state — that  we  should  be  over-anxious 
about  the  ‘‘why’’.  To  attempt  to  find  a  clear  line 
of  demarcation  between  our  mind  and  the  mind  of 
Christ  often  leads  to  perplexity  and  scrupulous¬ 
ness.  It  is  enough  to  recognize,  in  a  general  way, 
that  we  are  being  led  to  increased  love  of  spiritual 
activity,  to  increased  eagerness  for  service.  It  is 
well  that  we  can  perceive  in  ourselves,  underlying 
whatever  are  our  spiritual  activities,  an  increased 
consciousness  of  the  presence  and  action  of  our 
Lord. 

In  connection  with  this  it  is  perhaps  well  for  us 
to  scrutinize  our  life  of  prayer.  It  is  in  that,  I 
think,  that  the  indwelling  Life  of  our  Lord  com¬ 
monly  manifests  itself.  It  vivifies  our  prayers,  fill¬ 
ing  them  with  a  sweetness  and  joy.  Our  life  of 
prayer  began  most  likely  when  we  began  the  prac¬ 
tice  of  meditation.  Perhaps  it  has  continued  at 
that  stage.  That,  I  fancy,  represents  the  high- 
water  mark  in  prayer  of  a  good  many  serious 
Christian  lives.  Why  is  this?  We  certainly  ought 
to  be  able  to  push  on  beyond  meditation.  And  no 
doubt  many  do  by  changing  what  is  still  formally 
meditation  into  another  state  of  prayer.  Of 
course  the  limitations  of  meditation  as  a  form  of 
prayer  are  obvious.  We  need,  no  doubt,  the  dis¬ 
cipline  of  it,  the  training  and  the  application  of  the 
mental  faculties  to  a  given  subject.  But  in  many 


9o 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


cases,  at  least,  it  becomes  too  completely  an  intel¬ 
lectual  exercise  and  reduces  the  action  of  the  feel¬ 
ings  to  a  minimum,  and,  what  is  more  serious, 
keeps  us  so  busy  with  our  own  thoughts  that  we 
have  no  attention  for  anything  else.  We  are  alto¬ 
gether  given  over  to  the  exercise  of  memory  and 
intellect  and  will.  The  result  is  that  we  are  not  in 
an  altogether  receptive  attitude  of  soul.  We  make 
so  much  noise  with  our  own  speaking  that  we  are 
unable  to  hear  God  when  he  tries  to  speak  to  us. 

I  wish  to  be  understood  as  not  in  the  least  de¬ 
gree  undervaluing  meditation.  In  its  own  place  it 
is  invaluable  as  a  spiritual  help  and  discipline. 
The  practice  of  daily  meditation  extending  over 
years,  it  may  be,  has  built  up  many  a  soul  in  thor¬ 
ough  knowledge  and  well-grounded  experience. 
What  I  want  to  insist  on  now  is  that,  assuming  the 
value  of  meditation,  it  still  does  not  cover  the 
whole  field  of  prayer,  nor  is  it  the  variety  of  prayer 
at  which  we  can  afford  to  stop.  The  predominance 
of  the  intellect  in  it,  which  is  no  doubt  good  for 
most  of  us  in  a  certain  phase  of  spiritual  develop¬ 
ment,  is  the  limitation  that  needs  to  be  removed  if 
prayer  is  to  mean  for  us  the  exercise  of  all  our 
spiritual  powers  in  close  union  with  our  Lord:  if 
it  is  to  mean  a  state  in  which  our  Life  is  to  be  ad¬ 
mitted  to  our  lives  to  work  his  will  in  them.  To 
put  it  another  way,  we  need  a  form  of  prayer  in 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


91 


which  the  affections  play  the  dominant  role,  in 
which  our  attitude  toward  God  is  that  of  receptiv¬ 
ity. 

That  alternative  form  which  I  am  suggesting  is 
what  is  technically  known  as  affective  prayer . 
Many  of  us,  no  doubt,  have  passed  into  it  uncon¬ 
sciously  while  we  thought  we  were  making  medi¬ 
tations;  for,  fortunately,  we  are  taught  by  the 
Spirit  more  than  by  man,  and  the  Spirit  leads  us 
in  his  own  way  to  the  acquisition  of  his  gifts. 
After  all,  the  rules  of  the  spiritual  life  are  nothing 
more  than  the  schematization  of  our  spiritual  ex¬ 
perience  which  comes,  not  because  of  the  rules,  but 
is  born  of  the  action  of  God  on  our  souls.  But  the 
rules  are  valuable  in  that  they  are  an  attempt  to 
grasp  and  render  intelligible  universal  spiritual  ex¬ 
perience,  that  the  individual  may  order  his  own 
experience  in  accord  with  it.  Affective  prayer  is 
that  form  of  prayer  in  which  our  own  activity  is 
reduced  to  a  minimum  and  the  activity  of  God  up¬ 
on  us  becomes  the  essential  feature  of  the  prayer- 
state.  It  differs  not  very  much  from  the  Practice 
of  the  Presence  of  God,  which  is  one  form  of  it. 

It  consists  of  putting  one’s  self  in  the  presence 
of  God  and  submitting  ourselves  to  him  and  wait¬ 
ing  for  his  action.  As  the  mind  will  work,  whether 
we  want  it  to  or  no,  we  occupy  it  with  some  little 
thought  of  God,  of  his  goodness  or  mercy;  we 


9* 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


think  of  some  incident  in  our  Lord’s  life,  of  his 
birth  or  his  agony;  we  fill  the  mind  with  some 
phrase  of  the  Creed  or  the  Lord’s  prayer.  In  a 
way  this  is  simply  to  recollect  the  mind,  to  gather 
the  attention  on  a  single  point.  Then  instead  of 
proceeding  to  develop  this  theme  intellectually,  af¬ 
ter  the  manner  of  meditation,  we  dwell  upon  it  emo¬ 
tionally,  by  way  of  brief  acts  of  faith,  hope  and 
love.  The  more  the  intellectual  element  can  be 
suppressed  the  better:  the  more  intense  the  steady 
vision  of  God,  the  embracing  of  him  by  a  single 
act  of  the  spirit  as  the  object  of  our  desire,  the 
more  helpful  the  prayer.  Our  whole  attempt  is 
to  say  and  do  as  little  as  possible  ourselves,  just 
offering  ourselves  to  the  action  of  God.  Think  of 
yourself,  for  instance,  as  kneeling  before  the 
Crucifix  or  Tabernacle,  and  making  a  simple  act 
of  faith  in  our  Lord’s  presence,  holding  the  thought 
of  that  presence  in  your  mind  as  long  and  as  in¬ 
tensely  as  you  can.  As  the  mind  tends  to  waver 
and  stray  and  other  thoughts  intrude,  prevent 
them  by  some  half-spoken  thought — “I  am  thine. 
Lord,  receive  me.”  “Jesus,  my  Lord,  I  thee 
adore.”  “Speak,  Lord,  for  thy  servant  heareth.” 
There  is  an  infinite  range  of  subjects  and  af¬ 
fections  by  which  the  soul  may  be  thus  presented 

to  the  action  of  our  Lord.  But  the  essence  of  the 

/ 

matter  is  that  we  are  receptive,  expectant,  wait- 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


93 


Ing;  that  we  are  believing  and  loving  rather  than 
seeking  to  learn. 

At  first  sight  this  form  of  prayer  seems  simpler 
and  easier  than  meditation;  in  fact,  that  is  not 
at  all  the  case.  It  is  much  harder  to  keep  the  af¬ 
fections  tense  than  the  intellect.  The  persons  who 
at  the  first  attempt  find  it  easier,  do  so  because 
they  have  passed  into  a  dreamy  state  in  which 
there  is  no  activity.  But  effective  prayer,  while 
it  attempts  to  keep  the  soul  passive  to  our  Lord’s 
action,  is  at  the  same  time  running  to  meet  him , 
with  powers  that  are  thoroughly  aroused.  To 
dream  is  never  to  pray. 

This  may  seem  rather  a  digression  from  our 
subject  than  an  unfolding  of  it;  but  I  do  not  think 
it  so,  and  I  have  introduced  it  here  because  prayer, 
especially  the  more  advanced  forms  of  prayer, 
seem  to  me  the  most  effective  instruments  that 
our  Lord  who  is  life  uses  to  unite  himself  to  us 
and  transform  his  Life  in  us  into  Light.  ‘‘In  his 
Life  we  see  light.”  He  becomes  thus  the  inner 
guidance,  the  Inner  Light  of  Mystics,  the  Way  as 
well  as  the  Goal,  the  sustaining  power  in  the  way 
to  God. 

In  the  maturity  of  the  Christian  life,  when  com¬ 
munion  with  God  has  come  to  be,  not  an  un-ana- 
lyzed  phenomenon,  but  an  understood  fact,  we 
come  to  rely  on  this  indwelling  presence,  on  the 


94 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


Life  which  is  Light,  as  our  sustenance  and  sup¬ 
port  in  every  event  of  life.  The  transition  from 
immaturity  to  maturity  is  evidenced  in  two  ways. 
First,  in  our  immaturity  we  thought  of  God  as  “In 
heaven.”  Perhaps  most  Christians  so  think  of  him 
all  the  time.  The  notion  of  God  with  which 
Christians  have  been  reproached,  as  that  of  “a 
big  man  who  lives  in  another  street,’’  is  near 
enough  to  the  fact  of  many  a  man’s  thought  to 
have  its  sting.  God  is  a  distant  source  of  power 
to  which  we,  on  occasion,  resort.  But  in  maturity 
God  is  within  us ;  or,  perhaps,  we  are  in  God.  The 
sense  of  distance  is  abolished.  In  the  second 
place,  whereas  we  had  thought  of  God  as  one  to 
whom  we  might  resort  on  special  occasions,  we 
now  think  of  him  as  one  necessarily  concerned  in 
every  fact  of  our  lives.  It  is  not  that  experience 
occasionally  requires  God,  but  that  he  is  the  con¬ 
stant  factor  in  an  ever-changing  experience.  We  de¬ 
pend  on  his  help  in  a  more  intimate  sense  than  we 
depend  upon  the  help  of  our  friends.  In  our 
prayers,  in  our  communions,  before  the  Blessed 
Sacrament,  we  find  him ;  but  we  find  him,  too,  in 
our  room,  in  the  street,  in  the  country  walk.  And 
we  learn  to  make  use  of  him  constantly  in  the 
latter  situations.  And  it  is  the  use  of  the  Divine 
Presence  in  these  that  I  would  especially  stress. 
As  we  walk  down  the  street  some  morning  we 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


95 


are  conscious  of  the  Divine  Presence  filling  it. 
This  crowd  of  busy  men  and  women  going  their 
several  ways,  intent  upon  their  business  or  their 
pleasure,  all  unthinking  as  they  are,  of  any  Di¬ 
vine  Presence  at  all,  are  God’s  children;  all  have 
in  them  some  life  which  is  a  tiny  spark,  at  least, 
of  that  Light  which  enlighteneth  every  man.  God 
has  come  to  them,  his  own,  and  their  lives  have 
been  in  some  sort  changed  by  that  coming,  whether 
they  have  received  or  rejected.  And  because  he 
has  given  all  these  the  power  to  become  the  Sons 
of  God,  there  is  a  bond  of  interest  between  them 
and  us.  You  share  with  them  a  nature  which 
Christ  has  given  his  life  to  redeem.  So  they  be¬ 
come  interesting  one  by  one.  That  group  of  lads 
in  whom  the  brute  nature  speaks  so  loudly,  that 
flamboyant  girl,  painted,  powdered,  dyed,  with 
the  lust  of  the  flesh  looking  out  of  her  bold  eyes 
— they  seem  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  any¬ 
thing  divine ;  yet  they  are  “his  own/’  though  the 
knowledge  of  him  has  not  yet  penetrated  to  the 
dark  places  where  their  souls  dwell.  These  are 
lives  for  tears.  And  those  men  there,  whose  hard 
faces,  and  scraps  of  their  conversation  that  you 
catch,  tell  you  that  “they  mind  earthly  things” — 
they  are  the  most  hopeless  class  of  society,  more 
hopeless  than  the  hooligan  or  the  harlot,  yet  you 
know  that  the  power  of  the  Light  is  more  potent 


9^  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

than  the  power  of  the  Darkness,  and  that  a  man 
who  sat  at  the  seat  of  custom  once  left  it  to  follow 
Christ.  But  your  heart  is  heavy,  and  you  find 
it  difficult  to  hope  for  that  dirty  tramp  to  whom 
you  nevertheless  give  a  dime  in  forgetfulness  of 
the  behests  of  “organized  charity,”  and  you  look 
out  into  the  sunlit  street  hoping  to  find  your 
vision  in  the  sunlight.  There  is  a  woman  in  a 
motor  with  two  little  dogs  on  the  seat  beside  her! 
She  might  well  be  the  despair  of  God,  if  God  ever 
despaired!  But  he  never  does.  He  is  Life,  Life 
in  all  these,  Life  struggling,  striving  to  express 
itself  in  every  soul  that  he  has  made.  Even  the 
woman  in  the  motor  with  the  little  dogs  that  the 
ragged  child  on  the  pavement  is  staring  at,  the 
ragged  child  herself,  all  this  bewildering  crowd — 
the  Life  strives  in  and  with  them  and  is  eager  to 
find  in  them  the  means  of  its  self-expression.  Yes, 
God  is  in  the  many  colored  life  of  the  streets, 
with  its  infinitely  varied  types  and  its  startling 
contrasts,  seeking  to  “come  unto”  them,  for  indeed 
they  are  “his  own.” 

He  who  takes  God  with  him  out  into  the  world 
of  his  daily  life,  and  applies  God,  as  it  were,  as 
the  key  to  all  he  sees,  arrives  at  great  interpreta¬ 
tive  power.  The  deep  emotions  of  the  soul  that 
are  stirred  by  contact  with  the  world  become  the 
medium  of  revelation.  To  the  deep  quiet  of  the 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


97 


soul  before  the  beauty  of  the  sunset,  its  tumultuous 
beating  at  the  sound  of  glorious  music,  its  hush 
before  some  great  tragedy,  these  give  him  glimpses 
of  the  “ways  of  God.”  Spiritual  truths  that  have 
been  taught  to  us,  flash  into  significance,  and  start 
out  clear  and  naked  upon  the  page  of  life.  We 
find  God  and  the  working  of  God  everywhere, 
not  in  some  intellectual  creed  of  his  omnipresence, 
but  in  the  pages  the  Book  of  Life  opens  and  in 
which  we  now  read  with  understanding.  It  is  not 
so  much  an  intellectual  process  that  has  been  go¬ 
ing  on  in  us,  the  development  of  our  powers  of 
insight  and  observation,  as  the  surrender  of  our 
powers.  We  have  not  at  last  mastered,  at  the  ex¬ 
pense  of  much  effort,  the  mind  of  Christ,  but  the 
mind  of  Christ  has  mastered  us.  And  we  come 
back  to  St.  John  to  interpret  to  us  what  has  hap¬ 
pened.  “In  him  was  life  and  the  life  was  the 
light  of  men.’’  As  our  Lord  masters  us  we  see, 
as  it  were,  with  his  eyes.  The  Life  that  he  is,  is 
the  Light  by  which  we  now  see.  “In  his  light 
we  see  light.” 

I  can  fancy  someone  saying,  ‘‘That  is  all  very 
well  and  is  a  very  beautiful  ideal,  but  it  does  not 
take  place,  at  least  with  any  frequency.  I  hardly 
recognize — 

Ah,  that  is  another  thing — recognize.  To  have 
a  certain  process  going  on,  and  to  recognize,  that 

(8) 


9&  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

is,  be  able  to  analyze  and  give  an  account  of  it, 
are  two  things.  But  the  process  is  going  on  in  all 
Christians  whether  they  note  it  or  not.  If  you  think 
over  what  I  have  been  saying  you  will  recognize 
it  in  some  stage  of  advancement  in  yourself.  There 
are  in  your  experience  moments  when  your  aver¬ 
age  way  of  taking  life  presents  itself  as  inadequate 
and  unsatisfying.  Usually  you  accept  it  as  in¬ 
evitable  and  the  necessary;  and  then  the  moment 
comes  when  you  perceive  that  it  is  what  it  is  by 
virtue  of  your  acquiescence.  It  sometimes  happens 
to  enter  a  room  which  in  the  half-light  of  drawn 
curtains  looks  comfortable  and  rather  attractive; 
and  then  the  windows  are  cleared,  and  the  keen 
light  of  mid-day  sweeps  in,  and  we  see  the  room 
for  what  it  really  is — tawdry  and  pretentious. 
And  sometimes  the  Life  which  is  Light  falls  into 
our  lives,  letting  its  revealing  rays  play  upon  the 
tawdry  furniture  of  our  soul.  It  is  a  cruel  light 
that  falls  on  the  pretentious  screens  of  our  com¬ 
promises  and  shows  them  for  the  worthless  articles 
they  are;  that  shows  the  dust  of  prejudice  which 
we  have  tried  to  think  was  deep  conviction ;  that 
shows  what  we  have  conceived  to  be  our  virtues, 
to  be  indifferent  copies  of  the  social  conventions 
of  the  society  of  which  we  form  a  part.  In  such 
moments  of  self-recognition  as  that  we  have  the 
chance,  at  any  rate,  of  getting  near  the  truth 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


99 


about  ourselves,  if  we  can  endure  to  stand  in  the 
cruel  sunlight  and  let  the  truth  sink  deep.  It  is  the 
moment  when  the  possibility  of  a  renovation  of 
life  suggests  itself,  a  moment  of  keen  striving  of 
our  human  spirit  with  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  The 
impulse  to  take  one’s  self  in  hand,  and  clear  out  all 
these  shams  and  pretenses  and  compromises,  to 
put  an  end  once  and  for  all  to  our  excuses  for 
neglect  of  service,  when  our  alleged  inability 
turns  out  to  be  but  disguised  sloth;  to  get  the 
alternative,  Jehovah  or  Baal,  God  or  Mammon, 
Christ  or  self,  explicit,  becomes  strong.  And 
then  the  immense  work  of  the  change  overwhelms 
us,  and  we  draw  back  the  curtain  and  reduce  the 
light  till  the  house  of  our  life  seems  decently 
habitable.  You  have  watched  a  horse  attempting 
to  free  a  wagon  that  has  got  in  the  mud  and  have 
seen  the  strain  of  the  muscles  in  the  tough  pull 
that  should  loose  the  load ;  and  there  was  a  second 
when  there  was  a  beginning  of  movement  and 
success  was  on  the  point  of  attainment.  But  just 
then  the  muscles  relaxed  and  it  was  all  to  begin 
again.  We  see  our  problems,  and  we  seem  on  the 
very  point  of  success,  and  then  the  spiritual  mus¬ 
cles  decline  to  act  and  we  fall  back.  No;  it  is  not 
that  we  have  not  our  moments  of  clear  seeing; 
it  is  not  that  the  Life  of  God  does  not  shine  into 
the  dark  corners  of  our  lives,  it  is  not  that  the 


IOO 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


vision  fails  or  the  voice  is  silent;  it  is  that  some¬ 
thing  intervenes  and  distracts  the  attention  and 
possesses  the  affections  and  divides  the  will;  and 
we  drop  the  attempt  in  disheartenment.  The 
something  that  comes  between  our  dawning 
spiritual  vision  of  our  lives,  the  conviction  that 
our  religion  requires  that  they  be  treated  as  the 
expression  of  a  Divine  Life  which  inhabits  us, 
and  our  energetic  actions  in  response  to  cur 
vision,  is  some  phase  of  what  we  broadly  call  the 
world — the  complex  and  sum  of  all  that  is  opposed 
to  God.  The  Trouble  with  the  world  is  that  it 
withdraws  attention  from  the  proper  concerns  of 
our  life  and  consumes  the  energy  which,  if  prop¬ 
erly  directed,  would  have  sufficed  for  their  sancti¬ 
fication.  A  worldly  life  is  a  very  horrible  thing  to 
contemplate.  It  is  a  life  that  is  hid,  not  with 
Christ  in  God,  but  in  material  things  and  interests. 
We  may  define  a  worldly  life  as  one  centered 
about  unspiritual  interests;  or,  perhaps  better,  as 
a  life  all  of  whose  interests  are  treated  as  un¬ 
spiritual.  A  mode  of  activity  to  which  we  con¬ 
form  ourselves;  that  is,  whose  unspiritual  ideals 
we  adopt,  rather  than  a  mode  of  activity  which 
we  transform  by  imposing  our  own  spiritual  ac¬ 
tivities  upon  it.  We  fall  into  a  way  of  classing 
life  as  worldly  or  unworldly  according  to  its  con¬ 
tents,  its  specific  acts;  whereas  worldliness  is  not 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


IOI 


this  or  that  set  of  acts  but  an  attitude  of  mind 
towards  action.  It  is  a  mistake  to  say  that  the 
theatre  is  worldly  and  a  prayer-meeting  unworldly. 
In  the  individual  experience  the  reverse  may  quite 
easily  be  the  case.  It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that 
riches  lead  to  worldliness,  and  poverty  is  always 
free  from  it.  The  moving  picture  show  is  prob¬ 
ably  patronized  by  as  many  worldly  people  as 
the  opera.  It  matters  little  what  the  contents  of 
life  are;  it  is  our  total  attitude  toward  life  that 
matters.  There  is  a  perfectly  worldly  way  of  be¬ 
ing  a  Christian,  as  you  may  find  by  attempting  to 
speak  of  spiritual  truth  to  the  first  dozen  Chris¬ 
tian  people  whom  you  meet.  Life  presents  itself 
as  raw  material  which  may  be  moulded  to  suit 
any  set  of  ideals  that  we  possess.  The  insistent 
question  is  whether  we  are  letting  the  ideals  of 
the  glaring  material  civilization  in  which  we  to¬ 
day  live,  impress  themselves  on  us,  or  whether 
we  have  the  spiritual  vitality  to  maintain  the 
ideals  of  the  City  of  God  in  the  midst  of  the  city 
of  this  world.  Are  we  carrying  out  of  the  Church 
the  ideals  which  are  presented  to  us  in  every  line 
of  the  liturgy — the  ideals  of  humility,  of  sacrifice, 
of  purity,  of  charity — and  expressing  them  through 
the  acts  of  our  daily  life;  or  are  we  bringing  the 
ideals  of  the  world  into  the  Church,  and  remaining 
even  at  the  foot  of  the  altar,  frivolous  pleasure 


102 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


seekers,  slaves  of  our  senses,  trifling  gossip-mon¬ 
gers,  and  uncharitable  judges?  A  French  writer 
has  said,  sweepingly,  “there  are  only  a  few  hun¬ 
dred  Christians  in  the  world.”  We  may,  no  doubt, 
multiply  the  number  somewhat;  but  it  remains 
that  the  impression  that  the  average  Christian 
makes  on  the  world  is  not  that  of  one  who  has 
detached  himself  from  the  world  and  whose  in¬ 
terests  are  plainly  elsewhere — is  not  that  of  one 
who  is  the  bearer  of  a  divine  message  and  the 
manifestor  of  a  divine  life. 

For  into  whatever  circle  of  life  our  duties  and 
obligations  carry  us,  it  will  there  become  manifest 
whose  we  are  and  whom  we  serve.  There  is 
small  need  or  use  for  the  hidden  Christian  who 
regards  his  religion  as  his  own  private  concern 
which  is  no  business  of  his  neighbor.  “I  dont,” 
he  says,  ‘‘wear  my  religion  on  my  sleeve,  or  talk 
about  it  in  offices  and  at  dinner  tables.”  But  the 
Christian  religion  is  not  an  esoteric  religion;  and 
whether  a  man  talks  of  it  or  not,  it  will  be  audible 
and  visible  in  the  man  if  he  actually  exists.  “A 
city  set  on  a  hill  cannot  be  hid.”  An  invisible 
religion  is  a  non-existent  religion.  It  might,  to 
be  sure,  be  hid  if  it  were  a  special  set  of  observ¬ 
ances,  a  ritual  gone  through  at  stated  intervals, 
a  few  select  rules  of  conduct.  But  it  is  not  that; 
it  is  the  expression  of  an  indwelling  Life.  The 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


103 

t 

vital  question  is  whether  the  life  of  the  Incarnate 
is  being  suppressed  or  expressed  by  us.  We  are 
the  organs  of  Christ’s  self-manifestation,  the  med¬ 
ium  through  which  he  makes  himself  known. 
What  greater  absurdity  can  we  be  guilty  of 
than  that  of  substituting  for  the  New  Testament 
conception  of  a  Christian  as  the  regenerate  child 
of  God,  the  new  Creation,  the  member  of  Christ, 
in  whom  Christ  Jesus  is  being  formed — the  moral 
man  whose  life  is  governed  by  a  few  select  maxims 
of  good  conduct?  Whatever  else  may  be  said 
of  them  they  live  in  different  worlds. 

I  suppose  none  of  us  finds  his  own  expression  of 
religion  other  than  disappointing.  It  is  disappoint¬ 
ing  to  get  up  some  hours  before  daylight  and  climb 
the  rough  way  that  leads  to  the  mountain  top  to 
see  the  sunrise,  only  to  find,  when  the  hour  strikes, 
that  it  rises  behind  mists  and  we  do  not  see  it  at 
all.  But  perhaps  if  we  would  be  patient  the  mists 
will  begin  to  thir^  and  their  greyness  be  shot  through 
with  opal  lights — rose  and  pearl  and  mauve — till 
they  at  last  melt  away  and  unclose  the  valley  o’er 
which  the  sun  now  pours  a  flood  of  golden  light. 
And  surely  if  we  will  be  patient  of  the  climbing 
and  the  waiting  the  mists  will  break  in  our  lives 
and  unclose  the  vision  of  God.  Only  the  waiting 
must  be  an  active  waiting.  There  are  so  many 
things  in  us  which  are  obstructive  of  our  Lord’s 


104 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


manifestation,  so  many  things  the  obstructive 
powers  of  which  we  do  not  even  perceive  till  we 
have  set  ourselves  with  much  earnestness  to  follow 
the  Way.  Those  surface  things  which  we  thought 
of  as  obstacles  in  the  way  of  our  spiritual  de¬ 
velopment,  the  occupation  which  absorbs  our  time, 
and  the  associations  that  we  felt  we  could  not 
break  with,  are  easily  dealt  with  when  once  we 
are  in  earnest.  They  look  formidable  to  the  timid 
imagination  standing  at  the  parting  of  the  ways 
and  wondering  whether  it  has  any  power  to  change 
its  habits.  But  these  turn  out  to  be  trifling  things 
when  once  we  start.  The  real  difficulties  of  the 
way  develop  as  we  go  on.  There  is  one  in  particu¬ 
lar  that  I  would  note.  Nietzsche  tells  of  a  traveler 
who  had  passed  his  life  in  observing  men  and 
cities,  and  who  was  asked  if  he  had  noted  any  one 
trait  which  was  common  to  all  the  peoples  whom  he 
had  seen.  And  the  traveler  replied,  “I  have  no¬ 
ticed  everywhere  a  certain  tendency  to  sloth.”  That 
there  is  in  us  “a  certain  tendency  to  sloth”  is  the 
root  difficulty  we  have  to  deal  with.  If,  after  St. 
Paul’s  analysis  of  the  case,  a  man  sees  the  better 
and  follows  the  worse,  I  doubt  very  much  whether 
it  is  the  worse  that  is  more  attractive ;  it  is  usually 
just  that  it  is  easier.  It  is  the  compulsion  that  we 
have  constantly  to  put  upon  ourselves  to  keep  our¬ 
selves  up  to  any  high  standing  that  renders  spirit- 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


ual  activity  so  difficult ;  and  in  the  majority  of  cases 
so  impossible.  And  the  true  significance  of  spirit¬ 
ual  sloth  and  its  immense  obstructive  power  is  not 
unmasked  till  we  take  up  with  some  earnestness 
the  practice  of  the  spiritual  life.  When  we  try  to 
bring  to  bear  on  the  common-place  contents  of  our 
lives  the  pressure  of  spiritual  motives  that  shall 
lift  them  out  of  their  common-placeness  and  trans¬ 
form  them  into  acts  of  service  and  adoration,  then 
we  begin  to  understand  the  obstructive  power  of 
sloth. 

Our  power  to  overcome  this  tendency  to  sloth 
by  the  steady,  unflagging  pressure  of  spiritual  mo¬ 
tive,  will  be  the  evidence  of  the  operation  of  the 
Life  in  our  lives.  If  I  understand  the  matter,  it 
is  most  often  through  a  certain  sense  of  pressure 
that  the  presence  of  the  Life  within  our  lives  is 
discerned.  It  is  as  though  something  within  us 
were  struggling  for  release,  seeking  to  be  born. 
The  results  that  we  are  getting  do  not  satisfy,  and 
the  inertia  of  habit  struggles  with  the  pressure  of 
ideals,  till  one  or  the  other  conquers.  It  is  the 
struggle  of  the  butterfly  within  the  chrysalis,  though 
in  the  spiritual  experience  of  men  the  butterfly 
often  fails  to  break  its  way  out.  The  inertia  of  life 
is  a  tremendous  thing;  how  often  do  we  see  it  pre¬ 
vail  against  the  dawning  aspirations  of  a  soul  al- 


io6 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


most  converted.  The  dead  soul  is  an  abortive  at¬ 
tempt  of  the  divine  life  to  find  expression. 

Let  it,  however,  find  the  powers  of  the  spiritual 
nature  energetic  and  responsive,  and  that  takes 
place  which  in  the  Apostles’  phrase  is  Christ  being 
formed  in  us.  We  experience  his  meaning.  “That 
old  things  are  passing  away  and  all  things  are  be¬ 
coming  new.”  We  emerge,  like  the  butterfly,  into 
a  new  world,  passing  out  from  a  world  of  associa¬ 
tion  with  “the  hidden  things  of  darkness”  into  the 
light  of  the  redeemed  and  sanctified  life.  You  walk 
through  the  meadow  on  a  day  when  thick  clouds 
have  hidden  the  sun,  and  each  item  of  the  land¬ 
scape  is  plain  to  you;  you  rejoice  in  the  beauty  of 
the  little  blue  grass  flower,  in  the  shyness  of  the 
violets  that  hide  beneath  the  leaves,  in  the  grace 
of  the  willow  that  dips  its  slender  fingers  in  the 
brook.  And  then  the  clouds  break  and  the  sun 
streams  over  the  earth  in  a  sudden  explosion  of 
golden  light — and  it  is  a  new  world.  Every  point 
of  it  is  filled  with  light;  it  glows  and  burns  and 
sparkles  till  you  wonder  why  you  thought  it  beauti¬ 
ful  before.  The  coming  of  the  Living  Christ  into 
the  world  of  our  consciousness  is  like  that ;  he 
comes  with  a  burst  of  splendor  and  transfigures  it. 
The  values  of  life  are  enhanced  and  transformed. 
You  wonder  what  you  found  in  life  that  was  at¬ 
tractive  when  it  lay  in  the  darkness  of  his  absence. 


I  AM  THE  LIFE 


107 


“And  we  beheld  his  glory,”  so  the  Apostle  sums 
his  experience,  thinking  of  the  days  of  his  intimacy 
with  one  who  was  the  Word  made  flesh.  Glory 
seems  to  him  the  word  that  best  gathered  into  one 
all  the  manifestations  of  the  life  that  had  taber¬ 
nacled  in  humanity,  and  which  the  darkness  of  hu¬ 
manity  could  not  overcome.  The  mighty  works  and 
the  signs,  the  words  which  were  so  different  from 
the  teaching  of  the  scribes,  and  were  not  as  man 
spake,  and  threw  illuminating  flashes  into  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  God  and  man,  the  deeds  of  tenderness  and 
pity — all  these  mingled  in  the  “glory”  that  he  saw. 
And  this  glory  is  not  withdrawn  from  earth  when 
the  Christ  himself  passes  away  into  invisibility,  hid¬ 
den  by  “clouds.”  It  is  a  glory  that  he  has  left 
with  those  whom  he  has  redeemed  and  regenerated, 
to  whom  he  gave  power  to  become  the  Sons  of  God, 
and  whom  he  made  partakers  of  his  own  Life.  The 
Ascended  Jesus  is  not  hidden,  but  is  visible  in  the 
lives  of  those  who  are  made  one  in  his  Life. 
Through  and  in  them  the  Light  of  Jesus  becomes 
visible  in  all  its  fascinating  beauty  and  irresistible 
power.  He  is  seen  to-day  in  his  Holy  Ones.  We 
who  are  his  children,  his  redeemed  ones,  his  new 
creation,  are  the  recipients  of  his  life  and  the  mani- 
festors  of  his  glory.  That  is  our  high  and  splendid 
vocation  to  which  we  respond  by  the  joyous  offer¬ 
ing  of  our  lives.  We  are  called  up  into  the  moun- 


io8  THE  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

tains  with  him  that  when  we  come  down  our  faces 
may  shine  with  his  transfiguring  glory,  that  men 
seeing  us  penetrated  by  the  Light  which  is  Life 
might  have  no  doubt  of  the  present  power  of  the 
Incarnate,  and  might  glorify  our  Father  who  is 
in  Heaven. 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD. 


Let  us  listen  to  the  zvords  of  our  Lord  — 

I  am  the  Living  Bread. 

Let  us  picture  — 

H  FIRST  Communion;  if  you  will,  as  it  takes 
place  here  at  St.  Mary’s,  on  a  Whitsunday 
morning.  It  is  a  gray  morning  out  there  in 
the  streets  as  the  boys  and  girls  are  coming  from 
their  homes,  but  in  here  there  is  light  and  color. 
The  red  of  the  Altar  hangings  is  repeated  in  the 
priest’s  vestments,  the  server’s  cassock,  the  flowers 
on  the  Altar,  and  is  accented  against  the  soft  gray 
of  the  pillars  and  walls.  Down  in  the  nave  are 
the  newly  confirmed,  some  dozens  of  eager  faces, 
most  of  them  very  young.  It  recalls,  does  it  not, 
a  day  in  your  own  experience,  when  you  knelt 
here  or  elsewhere,  to  receive  for  the  first  time  the 

108 


IXO 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


Body  and  Blood  of  your  Lord.  As  we  look  at  these 
young  Christians,  there  is  not,  perhaps,  as  much 
recollection  as  we  could  wish;  but  it  is  a  strange, 
unusual  thing  that  they  are  engaged  in,  so  we 
must  allow  for  tense  and  excited  nerves.  But  there 
is  eagerness  and  expectancy,  and,  in  the  end,  awe. 
They  come  to  kneel  at  the  rail  with  a  pathetic 
desire  to  do  what  is  customary,  to  remember  their 
instructions ;  and  as  the  priest  comes  to  them,  there 
are  hands  stretched  out  that  tremble  a  little,  there 
are  awe-stricken  faces,  there  are  eyes  in  which  he 
catches  the  flash  of  tears.  These  souls  that  only 
yesterday  experienced  the  grace  of  pardon  are 
opened  wistfully  to  our  Lord  with  the  expectancy 
of  some  mysterious  blessing.  These  are  pure 
abodes  where  the  Lord  that  was  Crucified  and  is 
Risen  enters  in  to  dwell,  if  he  may,  forever.  Think 
of  yourself,  once  more,  as  you  knelt  at  your  first 
Communion. 

Consider ,  -first  — 

That  the  Holy  Communion  is  the  means  which 
our  Lord  has  chosen  to  perpetuate  his  vital  union 
with  human  souls.  “He  that  eateth  my  Flesh  and 
drinketh  my  Blood,  dwelleth  in  me  and  I  in  him. 
As  the  Living  Father  hath  sent  me,  and  I  live  by 
the  Father :  so  he  that  eateth  me,  even  he  shall  live 
by  me.”  The  insistence  of  the  Church  upon  fre- 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD 


III 


quency  of  Communion  is  based  on  this — that 
through  participation  in  the  virtue  of  this  Sacra¬ 
ment  “our  sinful  bodies  are  made  clean  by  his 
Body,  and  our  souls  washed  through  his  most  prec¬ 
ious  Blood,  and  we  may  evermore  dwell  in  him  and 
he  in  us.”  We  have  some  difficulty  in  appropriat¬ 
ing  these  plain  statements  as  the  exact  meaning  of 
our  Communion.  There  are  moments  when  we 
seem  to  find  their  truth ;  and  then  our  sense  of  their 
reality  tends  to  diminish  as  we  pass  into  moods 
that  seem  unspiritual.  But  consider,  that  it  is  pre¬ 
cisely  in  such  moods  that  we  most  need  to  fix  our 
minds  on  the  nature  of  the  act  of  Communion.  We 
must  beware  of  letting  ourselves  down  to  the  level 
of  our  inferior  moods;  or,  indeed,  of  letting  our¬ 
selves  be  influenced  at  all,  by  moods,  in  our  re¬ 
lation  to  our  Blessed  Lord.  If  our  best  moments, 
our  moments  of  keenest  perception  of  our  Lord’s 
presence,  are  rare,  we  can  at  any  rate  live  in  the 
light  and  inspiration  of  those  moments.  The  mem¬ 
ory  of  them  can  be  brought  into  the  more  frequent 
dull  and  unspiritual  moments  as  stimulus  to  our 
tired  faculties,  as  impulse  to  the  will,  as  warmth 
to  the  emotions,  rousing  them  to  go  out  to  meet 
the  coming  Guest  of  the  soul  with  longing.  That 
soul  has  gained  much  which  has  learned  to  insist 
that  those  passing  moments  that  it  has  come  to 


112  the  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

recognize  as  its  best,  shall  tend  to  become  habitual 
through  persistency  of  spiritual  effort. 

Consider ,  second  — 

What  it  means  to  the  soul  to  be  filled  constantly 
with  the  Personal  Presence  of  its  Savior,  to  have 
only  to  open  its  doors  for  him  to  come  in.  If  we 
were  more  confident  in  our  belief  in  the  Real  Pres¬ 
ence,  should  we  not  find  a  growing  response  to 
our  Lord’s  coming?  One  needs  so  the  active  wel¬ 
coming  of  him.  One  feels  that  it  is  not  the  fear  of 
sinning  that  is  going  to  protect  us  and  make 
us  strong  against  temptation,  but  a  sense  of  the 
loving  and  friendly  presence  of  our  Lord  with  us. 
There  is  a  certain  intimacy  with  him  that  grows  out 
of  frequent  communion  that  makes  us  eager  to  be 
like  him,  which  makes  us  long  for  the  growth  in 
us  of  his  purity  and  holiness.  Our  habitual  atti¬ 
tude  toward  our  Lord  has  too  much  the  quality  of 
aloofness  and  distant  admiration.  It  is  just  that 
attitude  that  his  Incarnation  was  intended  to 
break  down,  to  substitute  for  it  the  attitude  of  inti¬ 
mate  association.  Our  relation  to  our  Lord  is  even 
closer  than  that  of  his  Disciples  in  that  it  is  an 
inner  relation,  a  purely  spiritual  nearness,  an  inter¬ 
communion  of  spirit  with  spirit,  which  could  only 
have  place  after  his  Ascension.  We  need  to  make 
our  communion  more  explicitly  a  personal  approach 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD  1 1  3 

to  one  whom  we  love  and  go  forth  to  meet.  When 
I  come  to  my  communion,  I  am  coming  to  present 
myself  to  my  Lord  as  one  whom  he  has  chosen  out 
of  all  the  world  to  bear  his  name  and  to  be  his 
friend.  If  I  trusted  to  myself,  I  might  hesitate  to 
come ;  but  1  come  trusting  in  his  promises ;  I  come 
because  he  bids  me  come;  I  come  believing  that  he 
wants  me.  Why  should  I  distrust  him  and  draw 
back  from  his  offered  love? 

Let  its  pray ,  then — 

For  more  of  confidence  in  our  approach  to  our 
Lord;  for  a  securer  grasp  upon  his  promises,  a 
more  perfect  trust  in  his  word :  “He  that  cometh  to 
me  I  will  in  no  wise  cast  out.” 

We  give  Thee  thanks,  O  Lord  our  God,  after 
having  received  Thy  holy,  spotless,  immortal,  and 
heavenly  Mysteries,  which  Thou  hast  given  us  for 
the  benefit,  sanctification,  and  healing  of  our  souls 
and  bodies.  And  we  pray  and  beseech  Thee,  O 
good  Lord,  the  Lover  of  men,  to  grant  that  the 
Communion  of  the  holy  Body  and  precious  Blood 
of  Thine  Only-begotten  Son  may  procure  for  us 
faith  that  needeth  not  to  be  ashamed,  love  without 
dissimulation,  fulness  of  wisdom,  healing  of  soul 
and  body,  repulse  of  every  enemy,  fulfilment  of 
Thy  commandments,  an  acceptable  defence  before 
the  awful  judgment-seat  of  Thy  Christ. 


(9) 


1 14  THE  SELF-REVELATION  CF  OUR  LORD 

One  likes  to  think  of  the  first  Eucharist  of  the 
Apostles,  after  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Spirit  had 
endued  them  with  power  from  on  high  and  distri¬ 
buted  to  them  the  gifts  of  ministry,  which  he  who 
had  on  Ascension  Day  led  his  “Troop  of  Captives” 
to  the  court  of  heaven  had  received  for  men.  We 
think  of  it  as  being  most  likely  on  the  morrow  of 
that  first  day  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  would  be  in 
that  Upper  Room  where  they  had  eaten  their  Last 
Passover,  and  had  shared  in  the  institution  of  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  which  was  to  be  the  center  and 
object  of  Christian  worship  “till  he  come.”  Dur¬ 
ing  the  days  lately  past  they  had  gathered  there  in 
‘‘fear  of  the  Jews.”  Now  they  gather  in  joy  and 
gladness  in  the  strength  of  the  Risen  Life  and  in 
the  power  of  the  Indwelling  spirit.  St.  John, 
I  like  to  think,  would  be  the  celebrant,  and  they 
would  renew  the  acts  of  the  Institution,  and  receive 
with  the  elements  a  renewed  sense  of  the  Master’s 
presence.  How  vivid  would  be  their  certainty  that 
he  was  restored  to  them,  that  his  words  were  ful¬ 
filled,  “I  will  not  leave  you  comfortless,  I  will  come 
to  you,”  as  the  words  were  pronounced  “take,  eat, 
this  is  my  Body;  drink  ye  all  of  this,  this  is  my 
Blood.”  Jesus  was  in  very  deed  with  them,  not 
through  the  influence  of  a  memory,  but  in  the  fact 
cf  his  Personal  Presence.  There  was  no  room  for 
any  doubt  of  his  continued  existence  for  he  was 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD  11$ 

known  to  them,  and  ever  would  be,  in  the  breaking 
of  the  Bread. 

When  we  try  to  estimate  the  influences  which 
bore  upon  the  life  of  the  Apostles  and  moulded 
their  experience  and  guided  their  actions  in  those 
critical  days  that  immediately  followed  the  Ascen¬ 
sion  of  our  Lord,  that  shaped  their  thought  as  to 
the  meaning  of  his  Resurrection  and  Ascension  and 
his  living  Presence  in  heaven,  it  is  hardly  possible 
to  over-estimate  the  influence  exercised  by  the  re¬ 
stored  Presence  of  our  Lord  that  was  affected  as 
a  part  of  their  daily  experience  by  the  celebration 
of  the  Holy  Eucharist.  Under  the  strain  of  the 
constantly  recurring  criticism  of  their  experience, 
the  effort  to  see  clearly  what  it  indeed  meant,  the 
fact  that  more  than  any  would  clear  their  thought 
was  precisely  the  daily  renewed  experience  that 
Jesus  is  here  which  was  the  result  of  their  com¬ 
munions.  “He  that  eateth  me,  even  he  shall  live 
by  me,”  was  so  true  just  then.  There  were  so 
many  mysterious  words  of  our  Lord  that  became 
clear  in  the  light  of  the  Real  Presence — -all  those 
words  about  going  away  that  he  might  come  again ; 
those  promises  of  an  abiding  presence  with  them 
till  the  end  of  the  world.  Here,  before  whatever* 
improvised  altar  they  might  set  up,  all  would  be 
plain.  This  Jesus  whom  they  had  seen  go  in  the 
clouds  of  heaven,  and  whom  they  had  expected  to 


Il6  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

so  come  as  he  had  gone,  was  come  otherwise ;  he  is 
with  them  in  the  unseen  Presence  of  the  sacrament. 

And  the  restored  Presence  was  not  an  ineffective 
or  silent  Presence:  it  was  active  and  energetic,  a 
Presence  that  was  inspiration.  During  the  years 
that  they  had  passed  with  him  he  had  guided  them 
by  the  spoken  word ;  now  he  is  to  guide  them  by 
inner  inspiration;  he  will  not  speak  to  them  but 
in  them,  and  they  will  not  be  less  but  more,  certain, 
of  his  Voice.  And  as  human  beings  will  always 
need  objective  facts  on  which  to  lean,  which  are 
to  them  the  pledges,  the  signs,  the  means  of  inner 
realities,  they  have  been  provided  in  the  Holy  Eu¬ 
charist  with  the  pledge,  the  sign,  the  means  of  the 
Presence  which  morning  by  morning,  entering  into 
their  souls,  becomes  known  to  them  in  the  impulse 
that  it  imparts  to  their  action,  the  strength  that  it 
gives  to  their  wills,  and  the  illumination  that  it 
sheds  into  their  minds.  They  go  forth  from  their 
communions  ready  to  meet  the  opposition  of  the 
world,  ready  to  stand  before  rulers  and  kings,  able 
to  speak  with  words  of  wisdom  which  they  know 
are  not  of  their  cunning  planning,  but  are  sent  as 
the  Spirit  gives,  ready,  when  the  call  comes,  to  lay 
down  their  lives,  ready  to  drink  of  the  cup  and  be 
baptised  with  the  baptism,  strong  in  the  conscious¬ 
ness  which  they  have  of  being  led  by  his  Presence 
to  the  fulfilling  of  his  will. 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD 


117 


There  is  little  said  about  the  Holy  Eucharist  in 
the  New  Testament;  but  what  is  said  is  quite  suf¬ 
ficient  to  indicate  the  place  that  it  held  in  the  new 
life  of  the  followers  of  Jesus.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  Book  of  the  Acts  there  are  two  passages  which 
say  all  that  needs  to  be  said.  The  first  passage  is 
that  which  gives  the  notes,  so  to  call  them,  of  the 
new  born  Church :  “And  they  continued  steadfast 
in  the  Apostles’  doctrine  and  fellowship,  and  in  the 
breaking  of  the  bread  and  of  the  prayers.”  “The 
breaking  of  the  Bread”  is  thus  one  of  the  salient 
notes  of  the  community  from  the  outset,  and  its 
place  is  emphasized  by  this  other  passage  from  the 
Acts :  “They  continued  daily  with  one  accord  in 
the  Temple,  and  breaking  bread  at  home;”  that  is, 
in  the  Upper  Room,  no  doubt,  which  formed  their 
first  “church.”  Here,  while  they  still  delayed  to 
break  entirely  with  their  ancestral  religion,  and 
perhaps  thought  it  might  not  be  needful  to  do  so, 
and  therefore  continued  their  attendance  on  the 
Temple  services,  they  met  for  that  act  of  worship 
which  was  distinctively  Christian.  Here  the  Holy 
Eucharist  was  their  daily  act  of  worship  and  the 
bond  of  their  unity  with  one  another  and  with  their 
risen  Lord. 

In  a  sense,  the  Eucharistic  doctrine  of  the  New 
Testament  was  very  simple ;  that  is,  it  is  expressed 
in  few  words  and  has  not  reached  the  elaboration 


1 1 8  the  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

of  statement  which  later  was  compelled  by  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  thought.  Of  course  it  is  impossible 
to  keep  any  subject  that  is  of  vital  interest  to  men 
in  the  simplicity  of  its  first  statements.  It  is  one 
of  the  common  phenomena  of  the  history  of 
thought  that  those  who  are  the  most  strenuous  ad¬ 
vocates  of  freedom  of  thought  are  most  averse  to 
the  complexities  of  statement  which  are  the  neces¬ 
sary  outcome  of  that  freedom.  We  cannot  very 
well  go  through  the  world  keeping  statements  with¬ 
out  asking  the  meaning  of  them,  and  when  we  ask 
their  meaning  we  are  on  the  road  to  a  developed 
theory.  We  have  left  simplicity  behind  it  seems. 
But  what  we  have  really  done  is  to  analyze  our 
seemingly  simple  statements  that  we  may  under¬ 
stand  them  better.  In  the  beginning  the  Church 
was  content  with  the  unanalyzed  statement  that 
Jesus  is  God;  in  the  event,  it  took  centuries  to  de¬ 
termine  what  is  implied  in  those  words.  In  the 
beginning  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Eucharist  was 
received  in  the  same  unanalyzed  way,  and  is  capa¬ 
ble  of  statement  in  the  words:  “Jesus  is  here.” 
The  doctrine  which  St.  Paul  “received”  is  almost 
as  simple :  “the  bread  which  we  break,  is  it  not  the 
communion  of  the  Body  of  Christ,  the  cup  which  we 
drink,  is  it  not  the  communion  of  the  Blood  of 
Christ?”  It  remained  for  later  times  to  introduce 
complexity.  Complexity  belongs  to  the  time  of 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD  119 

analysis  and  controversy,  but  perhaps  for  us  who 
believe  the  brief  statement  of  the  Apostle  is  best. 

For  what  we  mean  by  the  Real  Presence  is  that 
Christ,  as  he  promised,  comes — Jesus  is  here.  To 
apprehend  and  act  on  that  truth  there  is  small  need 
of  speculation;  there  is  need  of  spiritual  apprehen¬ 
sion.  “I  am  the  Living  Bread  that  came  down  from 
heaven,”  he  says.  Jesus  is  here,  on  the  altar,  in 
the  tabernacle.  He  is  here  utterly, — perfect  God 
and  perfect  man.  What  we  need  is  to  believe  him, 
to  receive  him,  to  worship  him.  “I  am  the  Living 
Bread,  whoso  eateth  my  Flesh  and  drinketh  my 
Blood,  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day.’’  Yes; 
we  believe,  we  eat,  we  live,  we  shall  rise. 

It  is  very  difficult,  people  say,  to  believe  that 
quite  literally.  Ah!  it  is  just  that  sense  of  diffi¬ 
culty  which  has  led  to  the  elaborate  analysis  which 
is  objected  to  as  being  theology  rather  than  relig¬ 
ion.  But  how  should  we  expect  that  such  a  fact 
would  be  other  than  difficult?  Any  fact  of  the 
material  world,  facts  as  simple  of  statement  as 
that  water  wets,  or  fire  burns  run  out  into  insolu- 
able  mysteries  if  you  push  the  analysis  far  enough; 
they  only  seem  simple.  What  we  mean  by  sim¬ 
plicity  is  not  at  all  that  they  are  simple,  but  that  they 
are  familiar ;  so  familiar  that  we  never  think  to  ask 
what  they  mean.  How  then  should  not  facts  which 
deal,  not  with  chemical  processes,  the  relations  of 


120 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


molecules,  of  electrons,  which  get  back  ultimately 
to  the  constitution  of  matter,  where  we  lose  our¬ 
selves  in  a  maze  of  speculation,  but  with  the  rela¬ 
tions  of  spirit,  with  the  relations  of  the  soul  to  its 
Maker,  with  the  means  that  the  Incarnate  adopts  to 
enter  into  relation  with  his  members,  not  be  mys¬ 
terious  and  difficult?  They  cannot  be  apprehended 
by  the  senses  but  only  by  the  grasp  of  faith. 
“Jesus  is  here”  is  a  proposition  addressed  directly 
to  our  faith ;  and  is  easily  appropriated  by  those 
who  have  the  gift  of  faith.  It  is  incapable  of  any 
form  of  statement  which  shall  be  without  difficulty 
for  the  intellect. 

It  is  no  doubt  true  that  much  of  the  feeling  of 
difficulty  which  ordinary  folk  feel  in  regard  to  re¬ 
ligious  facts  or  doctrines  is,  not  a  difficulty  of  the 
intellect  at  all,  but  of  the  imagination.  It  is  due 
primarily  to  unfamiliarity  with  the  facts.  Most  of 
the  strange  facts  of  life  we  have  become  so  familiar 
with  that  they  never  strike  us  as  strange,  they  never 
set  the  imagination  to  work  on  them.  They  are 
facts  that  we  assume  that  we  understand  because 
they  never  create  any  surprise.  I  have  sometimes 
thought  that  the  difficulty  that  many  feel  in  regard 
to  the  Real  Presence  is  in  some  measure  due  to 
their  isolation  of  the  fact — their  assumption  that 
it  is  the  only  fact  of  the  same  order  that  is  present¬ 
ed  to  them.  If  they  could  see  it  related  to  other 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD 


I  2 1 


like  facts  much  of  the  feeling  of  difficulty  would 
pass.  Let  us  see  if  we  can  so  relate  it. 

I  take  it  that  no  one  who  is  likely  to  read  these 
pages  will  have  experienced  anything  of  the  feel- 
ing  of  difficulty  of  the  kind  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking  when  they  think  of  the  Presence  of  God. 
God  is  one  and  omnipresent,  we  are  told ;  and  that 
statement  is  capable  of  being  expressed  in  this 
form :  God  is  here.  By  which,  of  course,  we  mean, 
not  that  God  exerts  power  here,  but  that  God  is 
here,  is  personally  present  in  this  room  in  which  I 
am  writing  or  in  that  room  in  which  you  are  read¬ 
ing.  That  is  a  very  wonderful,  a  very  mysterious 
fact;  but  it  does  not  create  in  you  the  reaction,  “I 
do  not  see  how  that  can  be,  I  find  it  hard  to  believe 
that.”  To  be  sure,  you  do  not  see  how  it  can  be ; 
but  you  long  ago  appropriated  it  by  faith  and  hold 
it  without  any  emotional  revolt.  You  believe  sim¬ 
ply,  God  is  here.  So  it  is  likewise  a  part  of  your 
faith  that  the  God  who  is  one  and  omnipresent, 
“Came  down  from  heaven,”  and  “was  incarnate”  in 
Christ  Jesus.  You  read  his  human  life  in  the  Gos¬ 
pels,  you  follow  the  story  of  his  ministry,  his  death, 
his  Resurrection  and  Ascension.  When  you  sum 
up  your  belief  about  this  wondrous  life  you  find 
that  the  simplest  form  in  which  you  can  express 
your  belief  is  this — Jesus  is  God.  That  again  is  a 
fact  that  you  have  appropriated  by  faith  and  it  has 


122 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


become  part  and  parcel  of  your  Christian  profession. 
You  do  not  see  how  it  can  be,  but  the  statement 
produces  in  you  no  feeling  of  difficulty.  Once 
again :  you  are  accustomed  to  receive  the  sacra¬ 
ments  and  you  experience  that  there  is  a  reaction 
of  them  upon  your  spiritual  nature;  that  through 
them  you  are  brought  into  a  special  relation  to 
God,  and  that  God  acts  through  them  upon  your 
soul.  You  call  this  action  grace :  and  when  you 
try  to  state  the  doctrine  of  grace  in  its  simplest 
terms  you  say,  Grace  is  God .  Grace  is  not  a  force 
acting  on  you  from  without,  from  a  distance;  but 
is  the  presence  of  God  in  your  soul.  Once  more, 
you  do  not  see  how  that  can  be;  but  you  know 
that  it  is  because  you  have  experienced  it.  The 
statement  that  it  is  true  produces  no  feeling  of  an 
insuperable  difficulty  to  accepting  it. 

Now  all  those  facts,  God  is  here,  Jesus  is  God, 
Grace  is  God,  are  facts  of  the  same  order,  what  we 
are  wont  to  call  supernatural  facts,  or,  as  we  might 
call  them,  facts  of  the  spiritual  order.  What  I 
want  you  to  see  is  that  the  Presence  of  the  Incar¬ 
nate  God  in  the  Sacrament  of  the  Altar,  what  we 
call  the  Real  Presence  of  Christ  in  the  Holy  Eu¬ 
charist,  is  also  a  fact  of  the  same  order.  It  is  no 
more  wonderful  or  difficult  than  those  other  facts 
and  ought  not  to  produce  any  other  sort  of  reac¬ 
tion  when  we  think  of  it. 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD 


123 


But  perhaps  there  is  another  element  that  enters 
into  our  sense  of  the  difficulty  of  the  Real  Presence, 
One  sometimes  finds  in  talking  with  people  in  re¬ 
gard  to  the  Blessed  Sacrament  that  they  have  con¬ 
fused  the  symbolic  acts  which  are  performed  at  the 
celebration  of  the  Eucharist  with  the  mode  of  the 
Real  Presence  itself.  The  celebration  of  the  Eu¬ 
charist  is  not  only  the  administration  of  a  sacra¬ 
ment,  it  is  the  offering  of  a  sacrifice.  The  Lord’s 
death  is  shown,  the  one  sacrifice  forever  is  present¬ 
ed  before  the  Father.  In  the  process  of  offering 
the  sacrifice  the  death  of  our  Lord  is  symbolically 
set  forth,  and  the  Body  broken  and  the  Blood  shed 
are  represented  by  the  bread  and  wine.  But  when 
we  connect  that  sacrifice  and  the  sacrament  of  the 
Holy  Communion  and  speak  of  the  presence  of  our 
Lord’s  humanity,  it  is  not  at  all  meant  that  our 
Lord’s  Body  is  by  itself  present  under  the  form  of 
bread,  or  that  his  Blood  by  itself  present  under  the 
form  of  wine.  A  misunderstanding  that  this  is 
what  is  intended,  and  that  we  are  expected  to  think 
of  our  Lord’s  Body  and  Blood  as  separated  in  the 
sacrament  is  a  frequent  source  of  difficulty  and 
confusion.  But  the  sacramental  symbolism  does 
not  imply  any  real  division  in  our  Lord — that  is 
impossible.  Our  Lord  is  present  in  the  sacrament 
as  Incarnate  God — God  and  man,  one  Christ.  And 
what  we  receive  in  the  sacrament  is  not  his  Body, 


124 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


in  separation,  under  the  element  of  bread,  and  his 
Blood,  in  separation,  under  the  element  of  wine, 
but  we  receive  him ,  God  and  man,  wonderfully  con- 
descending  to  unite  himself  with  our  spiritual  na¬ 
ture  that  “we  may  dwell  in  him  and  he  in  us.”  The 
account  of  the  sacrament  may  be  simplified  to  this: 
Jesus  is  here ,  and  is  come  to  dwell  in  our  souls, 
mysteriously  entering  into  union  with  them.  When 
we  thus  think  of  the  Eucharist,  as  the  Catholic 
Church  has  always  thought  of  it,  all  alleged  ma¬ 
terialism  of  the  Real  Presence  is  seen  to  be  swept 
away. 

This  presence  of  our  Lord  in  the  Holy  Eucharist 
is  rightly  spoken  of  as  a  spiritual  presence;  that  is, 
a  presence  which  is  after  the  laws  of  that  spiritual 
mode  of  existence  which  our  Lord  entered  upon  at 
the  Resurrection  and  Ascension  and  not  after 
the  laws  of  the  material  world.  He  is 
present  in  a  divine  and  heavenly  manner,  and 
not  in  a  manner  that  can  be  cognized  by  the  senses. 
The  senses  touch  matter  not  spirit.  It  is  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  the  Risen  and  Ascended  Jesus.  What  we 
need  to  apprehend  that  presence  is  not  profound 
learning,  but  intense  faith.  No  learning,  no  at¬ 
tempts  to  analyze  or  define  the  mode  of  the  pres¬ 
ence,  are  likely  to  help  us  much:  they  are  much 
more  likely  to  confuse  us  by  importing  into  a  pure¬ 
ly  spiritual  transaction  terms  which  belong  to- 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD 


125 


science  and  philosophy.  What  we  need  is  not  the 
learning  of  the  theologian  or  philosopher,  but  the 
simplicity  of  the  child.  The  child  does  not  impose 
the  categories  of  matter  and  time  and  place  upon 
a  spiritual  act,  and  our  difficulties  arise  from  the 
fact  that  we  will  not  refrain  from  so  doing.  The 
child  is  able  to  accept  the  truth  “Jesus  is  here” 
without  raising  the  question  of  the  relation  of  his 
presence  to  the  earthly  elements  that  symbolize  and 
convey  it.  A  father  and  mother  took  their  little 
boy  on  a  Sunday  morning  to  the  celebration  of  the 
Holy  Eucharist.  It  was  the  child’s  first  experience 
of  Catholic  worship,  and  the  parents  had  done  what 
they  could  to  prepare  him  by  telling  him  the  mean¬ 
ing  of  what  he  would  see.  He  had  the  child’s 
eager  interest  in  the  new  sights  and  sounds  and 
actions;  but  when  the  sermon  came  he  fell  asleep 
and  was  permitted  to  sleep  on  as  the  service  pro¬ 
ceeded.  It  was  well  on  toward  the  end  when  he 
awoke,  and,  after  a  moment  of  recollection,  he 
leaned  to  his  mother  and  whispered,  “Has  he 
come?”  If  we  could  but  attain  that  simplicity! 
There  is  all  the  eucharistic  doctrine  that  we  want. 
We  go  to  our  communions  with  the  conviction  that 
he  who  is  the  Living  Bread,  the  Food  of  our  Souls, 
is  coming;  and  after  devout  participation  in  the 
mysteries  we  go  away  with  the  certainty  that  he 
has  come — go  away  knowing  that  he  is  the  guest 


126 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


of  our  souls,  the  spiritual  meat  and  drink  that 
nourishes  them  unto  Eternal  Life. 

Let  us  see  to  it,  then,  that  when  we  dwell  on  the 
thought  of  our  Lord’s  presence,  we  are  seeking  as 
aids  to  our  apprehension  of  it,  not  the  skill  and 
training  of  the  critic,  but  the  insight  of  the  mystic. 
We  may  say  that  the  mystic  is  one  who  trusts  his 
spiritual  faculties  to  interpret  to  him  the  truths  of 
the  Spirit.  He  is  one  who  has  direct  apprehension 
of  the  spiritual  world.  And  this  direct  apprehension 
is  not,  or  ought  not  to  be,  the  possession  of  rare 
souls.  The  Christian  religion  is  a  mystic  religion 
and  it  is  possible  for  all  Christians  to  approach  its 
truths  by  the  way  of  mystic  apprehension.  To  do 
so,  no  doubt,  requires  a  certain  orientation  on  the 
part  of  the  believer.  He  must  have  divorced  him¬ 
self  from  the  materialism  and  intellectualism  which 
is  characteristic  of  much  approach  to  religious 
truths  and  practice,  and  have  accustomed  himself 
to  test  the  acts  in  which  his  faith  expresses  itself 
by  the  results  that  he  spiritually  discerns.  Does  he 
find  as  the  result  of  them  that  he  is  conscious  of 
the  presence  of  God?  Does  he  know  that  the  God 
he  is  appealing  to  in  his  intercessions,  to  whom  he 
is  offering  himself  in  his  acts  of  self-oblation,  to 
whom  he  is  uniting  himself  in  his  acts  of  love,  is 
actively  participant  to  all  these  actions?  I  do  not 
mean,  does  he  have  visions  or  fall  into  ecstacy,  but 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD 


127 


simply,  is  he  conscious,  does  he  know,  that  God  is 
here  and  acting?  The  consciousness  may  not  be 
vivid — if  it  is  only  a  vague  consciousness  one  can 
still  be  certain  of  it.  I  fancy  that  many  of  us  do 
not  have  this  consciousness  because  we  are  not  ex¬ 
pecting  it,  make  no  room  for  it,  are  so  concerned 
with  our  own  action  that  we  are  inattentive  to  the 
action  of  God.  But  the  things  of  the  Spirit  are, 
and  are  only,  spiritually  discerned.  The  attentive 
spirit  discerns  many  things  which  are  missed  by  the 
unexpectant  spirit.  It  is  with  expectant  spirits 
that  we  must  approach  our  Lord  in  the  Eucharist, 
discerning  the  Lord's  body,  not  only  distinguishing 
between  it  and  common  things,  but  discerning  its 
reality  in  the  sense  of  communion  with  him  which 
our  participation  brings. 

The  exclusive  reliance  upon  the  intellect  as  the 
sole  interpretative  factor  of  our  nature  is  disastrous 
in  the  matter  of  religion.  We  arrive  at  the  cer¬ 
tainty  of  faith  far  sooner  when  we  trust  ourselves 
to  the  light  and  leading  of  our  spiritual  powers  which 
have  been  disciplined  and  strengthened  by  constant 
use.  We  do  not  feel  that  St.  John  or  St.  Paul  ar¬ 
rived  at  their  knowledge  of  God  by  scientific  or 
philosophical  methods.  They  have  seen.  What 
they  have  to  tell  us  of  the  meaning  of  our  Lord 
and  of  his  work  for  us  is  the  outcome  of  their  per¬ 
sonal  experience  of  him.  As  I  have  pointed  out, 


128 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


they  know  him,  not  as  one  knows  an  historical 
character  whose  life  they  have  studied,  or  whom 
they  have,  perhaps  personally  known ;  but  they 
have  an  immediate  knowledge  of  him  which  is  the 
result,  not  altogether  of  vision,  but  of  the  silent  in¬ 
tercourse  of  many  years  of  prayer  and  meditation 
and  communion.  They  know  him  because  they 
are  one  with  him  with  a  unity  which  involves  his 
constant  action  as  well  as  theirs. 

Our  spiritual  experience  is  much  less  than  theirs 
no  doubt,  but  it  is  of  the  same  order — we  see  and 
know.  With  us,  at  any  rate,  it  is  a  fluctuating  ex¬ 
perience,  it  is  to  us  like  the  rise  and  fall  of  tides. 
There  are  moments  of  intense  apprehension  when 
the  tides  of  spiritual  certainty  sweep  up  the  shore 
and  flood  all  our  life.  We  experience  then  the  ex¬ 
hilaration  of  immediate  knowledge:  all  doubt  is 
washed  away.  At  such  moments  we  feel  that  we 
can  meet  all  that  life  brings  us  in  a  glad  spirit  be¬ 
cause  we  are  so  certain  of  God.  Such  moments 
tend  to  connect  themselves,  do  they  not,  with  our 
communions?  We  remember  mornings  when  it 
was  indeed  the  Bread  of  Life  that  we  received — re¬ 
ceived  with  souls  that  were  responsive  to  the  Di¬ 
vine  Presence,  and  overflowed  with  the  joy  of  pos¬ 
session.  We  remember  whole  days  wherein  our 
Lord  abode  in  us  and  we  were  comforted  and  con¬ 
soled  by  his  presence,  strengthened  for  the  work 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD 


129 


of  the  day,  or  just  filled  with  the  glad  sense  of  his 
nearness.  But  it  is  true  also  that  there  are  mo¬ 
ments  of  ebb,  when  the  tides  of  spiritual  vitality 
recede  and  leave  the  rocks  bare  and  the  shores 
strewn  with  impotent  desires  and  ineffective  as¬ 
pirations.  There  are  dreary  and  colorless  mo¬ 
ments  when  we  come  away  from  our  communions 
with  no  sense  of  quickened  spirituality  or  stimulat¬ 
ed  powers.  There  are  long  days  in  which  the 
word  of  our  Lord  is  rare :  there  is  no  open  vision. 
These  are  days  of  discipline  and  waiting  and  of  the 
hidden  action  of  God.  “There  is  a  hiding  of  his 
power.’’  But  only  a  hiding,  not  a  failure  of  it. 
Perhaps  our  spiritual  apprehension  has  run  low 
through  our  absorption  “in  the  other  things,”  which 
distract  the  life  from  God.  Perhaps  there  has  been 
real  failure  of  faith  in  us.  Perhaps  it  is  one  of  the 
tests  of  his  love.  In  any  case  we  must  not  doubt 
but  hold  the  faster  to  him.  He  is  still  with  us. 

“When  He  appoints  to  meet  thee,  go  thou  forth — 

It  matters  not 

If  South  or  North, 

Bleak  waste  or  sunny  plot. 

Nor  think,  if  haply  He  thou  seek’st  be  late, 

He  does  thee  wrong. 

To  stile  or  gate 

Lean  thou  thy  head,  and  long! 

It  may  be  that  to  spy  thee  He  is  mounting 
Upon  a  tower, 

(10) 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


I30 


Or  in  thy  counting 

Thou  hast  mistaken  the  hour. 

But,  if  He  come  not,  neither  do  thou  go 
Till  Vesper  chime, 

Belike  thou  then  shalt  know 

He  has  been  with  thee  all  the  time." 

This  expression  of  the  divine  presence,  this  di¬ 
rect  apprehension  by  faith  of  spiritual  reality, 
comes  almost  naturally  to  some  souls.  They  have 
never  been  disturbed  by  doubt  or  sin,  and  have  liv¬ 
ed  from  childhood  in  communion  with  their  Sav¬ 
iour.  But  in  most  of  us — we  purchase  this  liberty 
at  a  great  price :  the  price  of  penitential  tears  and 
times  of  indifference  and  neglect  redeemed  by  hard 
work.  Our  spiritual  certainty  comes  to  us  after 
many  hours  of  submissive  prayer  have  cleared  the 
spiritual  vision,  after  much  meditation  has  cleansed 
our  inner  faculties  and  devout  communions  have 
strengthened  them — long  hours  in  which  we  have 
patiently  waited  for  the  Divine  Advent.  One  of 
our  constant  dangers  is  that  we  lose  our  effort 
through  its  vagueness.  How  much  of  what  we 
think  to  be  spiritual  effort,  is  only  vague  aspiration, 
a  drifting  on  the  tides  of  the  imagination  rather 
than  a  resolute  pulling  against  the  stream  of  inflow¬ 
ing  discursive  thought.  It  is  easy  to  let  one’s-self 
wander  through  the  meadows  of  the  Gospel,  admir¬ 
ing  the  flowers,  but  without  plucking  any  bloom  or 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD  1 3 1. 

fruit  for  our  own  immediate  need.  And  this  seems 
to  be  a  special  cause  of  failure  in  many  commun¬ 
ions.  We  so  often  come  to  our  Lord  with  inchoate 
aspirations  rather  than  as  resolute  knockers  at  the 
gate,  who  know  quite  well  why  they  want  to  enter. 
“Seek  and  ye  shall  find”;  but  only  those  find  who 
are  quite  clear  as  to  what  they  are  seeking.  So 
many  communions  are  fruitless  because  we  did 
not  come  looking  for  any  fruit.  So  many  knock 
timidly  at  the  door  who  could  not  tell  what  they 
want  if  it  should,  perchance,  be  opened.  We  must 
come  with  whatever  lame  and  halt  we  have  with  an 
express  request  that  they  may  be  healed.  Our 
Lord’s  bounty  no  doubt,  outruns  our  desires ;  but 
the  Pearl  Merchant  was  at  least  seeking  goodly 
pearls  when  he  found  that  whose  surpassing  beauty 
caused  him  to  sell  all  that  he  had  to  acquire  it. 

The  Holy  Eucharist  is  the  means  of  our  Lord’s 
self-revelation.  Through  it  he  makes  himself 
known  to  us.  It  is  not  easy  for  him  to  make  him¬ 
self  known ;  it  is  sometimes  impossible.  He  found, 
in  the  days  of  his  flesh  that  there  were  places  where 
it  was  hopeless  for  him  to  attempt  to  speak  of  the 
truths  he  had  brought  to  men,  where  no  mighty 
works  were  possible.  There  are  souls  now  in 

A 

which  he  cannot  work.  He  works  best  in  an  at¬ 
mosphere  of  love.  The  Saints  have  such  perfect 
^/ision  of  our  Lord  because  their  love  is  so  perfect,. 


132 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


without  any  withholding.  Love  is  the  great  re- 
vealer.  We  feel  that  those  marvelous  pages  of 
St.  John  are  the  fruitage  of  his  great  love.  He, 
more  than  anyone  else,  can  tell  us  of  the  inner  life 
of  his  Master  because  his  love  saw  deeper  into 
that  life.  While  the  other  evangelists  tell  us 
events,  the  external  history  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
Saint  John  tells  us  the  spiritual  meaning  of  the 
events.  He  lingers  little  over  the  outward  happen¬ 
ings  ;  he  is  eager  to  take  us  with  him  into  the  sanc¬ 
tuary  of  our  Lord’s  thought.  You  say,  “more  was 
revealed  to  him.”  I  say,  “more  could  be  revealed 
to  him.”  Not  only  is  much  given  by  love,  but 
much  is  given  to  it. 

Therefore  St.  John’s  treatment  of  the  Eucharist 
is  vastly  different  from  that  of  the  other  evangel¬ 
ists.  They  were  content  to  record  the  act  of  the 
Institution.  St.  John  sees  in  it  a  mode  of  our 
Lord’s  self-revelation.  Hence  that  marvelous  sixth 
chapter  of  his  Gospel.  He  dwells  lovingly  there 
on  the  relations  of  the  sacramental  Christ  to  our 
whole  nature — on  the  permanent  union  wrought  by 
his  reception,  on  the  far-reaching  effects  of  our 
“eating”  of  Christ.  We  are,  as  it  were,  trans¬ 
fused  with  his  life.  The  Holy  Communion  is  that 
fountain  of  living  water  springing  up  unto  eternal 
life,  which  he  speaks  of  elsewhere.  The  eternal, 
the  resurrection,  life  is  directly  connected  with  it 


I  AM  THE  LIVING  BREAD 


l33 


“I  am  the  living  bread  which  came  down  from 
heaven :  if  any  man  eat  of  this  bread,  he  shall  live 
forever.”  “Whoso  eateth  my  flesh,  and  drinketh 
my  blood,  hath  eternal  life ;  and  I  will  raise  him  up 
at  the  last  day.”  Our  Lord  imparted  to  us,  is  the 
principle  of  eternal  life.  It  is  no  transient  union 
that  is  wrought  by  our  sacramental  incorporation 
in  him.  Because  he  lives  in  us,  and  as  long  as  he 
lives  in  us,  we  live  also.  The  eternal  years  are  as 
nothing  to  us;  we  have  passed  into  the  stability  of 
God. 

“Not  any  power  the  universe  can  know, 

Can  touch  the  spirit  hid  with  Christ  in  God. 

For  naught  that  he  has  made,  above,  below, 

Can  part  us  from  his  love.” 

The  certainty  of  this  stability  of  life  “in  him,”  of 
life  that  transcends  mortality  and  takes  hold  upon 
eternity,  which  is  the  characteristic  feature  of  St 
John’s  interpretation  of  the  Eucharist,  I  venture 
to  think  becomes  the  personal  possession  of  the 
Christian  in  proportion  to  the  passion  of  his  love. 
Love,  too,  is  a  medium  of  revelation.  It  has  its 
own  methods,  its  ways  to  knowledge,  its  own  cer¬ 
tainties.  And  what  school  of  love  is  there 
that  is  comparable  to  the  school  of  the  Eu¬ 
charist?  Here  is  the  love  that  shrinks  not  from 
the  humility  of  a  hidden  life,  the  love  that  makes 


*3  l  THE  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

itself  obedient  to  us,  coming  to  us  when  we  call, 
putting  itself  at  the  disposal  of  our  desire.  Our 
Lord,  in  the  loving  offer  of  himself,  has  again,  as 
in  his  life  on  earth,  subjected  himself  to  derision, 
to  scorn,  to  insult,  to  denial  and  rejection.  He  has 
put  himself  in  the  power  of  men,  made  it  possible 
for  them  “to  crucify  the  Son  of  God  afresh.” 
There  is  no  sadder  chapter  in  the  history  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  than  that  which  tells  the  story  of  the  treat¬ 
ment  of  our  Lord  in  the  sacrament  of  his  love. 

It  lays  an  obligation  on  our  love,  does  it  not  ?  the 
obligation  not  only  of  vision  that  we  may  find  him 
there  for  ourselves,  and  by  our  personal  devotion 
offer  ourselves  to  him ;  but  the  obligation  of  repar¬ 
ation,  that  we  at  his  sacrament  may  pray  for  the 
forgiveness  of  those  who  treat  him  lightly,  and, 
in  their  ignorance,  despise  him.  In  the  joy  of  our 
possession  let  us  not  forget  them. 

For  our  joy  in  the  presence  of  our  Lord  is  the 
supreme  joy  of  the  Christian  experience.  Through  , 
the  sacrament  of  the  altar  we  know  our  Lord’s 
presence  in  the  soul,  embraced  and  embracing.  We 
know  our  possession  in  him  of  that  Eternal  Life 
from  which  no  earthly  power  can  separate  us. 
We  know  the  love  of  Christ  which  passeth  know¬ 
ledge  and  are  filled  with  all  fullness  of  God. 


I  AM  THE  DOOR. 


Let  us  listen  to  the  words  of  our  Lord  — 


I  Am  the  Door. 

Let  us  try  to  picture  to  ourselves  — 


© 


UR  Lord  inviting  men  to  come  to  him  and 
find  rest.  How  often  the  word  “Come”  is 
on  his  lips.  It  is  the  call  to  discipleship : 
“Come,  take  up  the  Cross,  and  follow  me.”  It  is 
the  call  to  the  weary :  “Come  unto  me  all  ye  that 
labor  and  are  heavy-laden,  and  I  will  refresh  you.” 
It  is  the  call  to  intimate  experience  of  him :  “Come 
and  see.”  We  seem  to  see  him  reading  the  char¬ 
acter  of  those  whose  lives  he  touches,  seeking  in 
their  experience  some  point  of  contact  through 
which  he  may  offer  himself  with  the  beet  hope  of 
being  accepted.  We  watch  him  talking  with  the 
Woman  of  Samaria,  leading  her  to  see  the  meaning 
of  her  own  life  and  to  desire  something  better,  if, 


136  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

perchance,  that  will  bring  her  to  repentance.  We 
watch  his  wonderful  dealing  with  the  Syro-Phoeni- 
cian  woman,  by  his  seeming  repulse  of  her  bring¬ 
ing  her  faith  into  activity.  He  seems  to  go  deep 
into  the  inner  life  of  the  paralytic  who  lies  on  his 
bed  helpless  before  him,  when  he  says,  first  of  all, 
“Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee.”  He  leads  Philip  on 
to  more  perfect  knowledge  when  he  says,  “Have 
I  been  so  long  time  with  thee,  and  yet  thou  hast 
not  known  me,  Philip.  He  that  hath  seen  me  hath 
seen  the  Father.”  His  teaching  opens  to  men  the 
treasures  of  spiritual  knowledge  so  that  after  they 
have  talked  with  him,  it  is  as  though  a  great  light 
had  shined  into  their  lives  and  lit  up  the  dark 
places  there ;  as  though  some  door  that  had  hither¬ 
to  been  closed  to  them  were  thrown  open  and  they 
saw  hid  treasures.  What  has  happened  is  that  he 
has  made  them  see  their  lives  as  they  really  are, 
stripped  of  the  coverings  in  which  they  custom¬ 
arily  swathe  them.  His  words  take  men  into  their 
own  souls,  and  they  see  themselves  with  his  eyes. 

Consider ,  first  — 

That  it  is  in  him  that  there  comes  to  us  Salva¬ 
tion  ;  and  that  being  saved,  we  go  out  in  his 
strength  to  meet  the  experience  that  is  life.  We 
come  to  God  in  him,  and  then,  abiding  in  him,  we 
go  back  to  life.  This  is  at  once  our  safety  and  our 


I  AM  THE  DOOR 


137 


strength,  that  we  are  in  him.  This  is  our  confi¬ 
dence,  that  we  have  access  to  the  Father  through 
him.  Our  life  depends  upon  him  all  the  time,  and 
that  is  its  freedom.  We  do  not  lose,  we  acquire, 
freedom  of  thought  and  action  in  him,  because  in 
him  we  are  freed  from  the  ignorance  and  sin  which 
are  the  ground  of  slavery.  As  I  go  in  and  out 
through  him,  nothing  can  harm  my  life,  I  am  safe. 
All  troubles  and  perplexities  are  external.  They 
may  hurt  very  much,  but  they  cannot  harm.  Do 
we  quite  appreciate  what  a  wonderful  thing  this 
security  of  the  Christian  is?  That  we  are  safe 
from  any  ultimate  harm?  The  gray  rocks  rise  out 
of  the  sea,  and  on  the  day  of  storm  the  sea  beats 
itself  to  foam  about  them,  and  on  the  day  of  calm 
the  sun  blisters  them,  but  they  stand  unchanged  for 
centuries.  Our  inner  lives  are  shaken  by  no 
storms  if  they  are  lived  under  the  shadow  of  his 
wings,  abiding  in  him  we  are  undisturbed,  and  our 
souls  go  in  and  out  through  him  and  find  pasture. 
When  the  wolf  cometh,  there  is  always  a  refuge 
through  the  Open  Door. 

1 Consider ,  second  — 

That  our  safety  hangs  on  our  readiness  to  ac¬ 
cept  sanctuary  in  him.  If  we  choose  to  meet  the 
pains  of  life  in  our  strength;  if  we  choose  to 
fight  the  world  with  its  own  weapons;  then  the 


138  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

conditions  of  our  warfare  have  become  carnal. 
And  is  it  not  true  that  we  often  let  ourselve  be 
lured  from  the  security  of  the  hills  to  fight  in  the 
plains  upon  equal  terms  with  a  stronger  adversary? 
If  we  accept  the  world’s  view  of  life  and  adopt  its 
standards,  and  govern  ourselves  by  its  morality,  we 
have  abandoned  the  security  that  was  ours  because 
of  our  abiding  in  Christ.  Acceptance  of  our  Lord’s 
invitation  to  come  unto  him  involves  coming  away 
from  all  else.  It  means  the  frank  adoption  of  the 
manner  of  living  which  is  commended  in  the  Ser¬ 
mon  on  the  Mount.  Coming  to  Christ  is  a  per¬ 
manent  elevation  of  the  life,  and  a  permanent  aban¬ 
donment  of  the  principles  of  non-Christian  living. 
Consider  whether  you  have  really  accepted  our 
Lord’s  invitation  to  come.  What  evidence  do  you 
find  of  acceptance?  What  crucifixion  of  self,  what 
abandonment  of  houses  and  lands,  of  father  and 
mother,  what  resolute  putting  of  the  hand  to  the 
plow  with  no  backward  look?  Or  with  the  semb¬ 
lance  of  acceptance,  is  the  world  still  in  your 
heart?  Do  you  find  it  possible  to  go  in  and  out 
only  through  him,  the  One  Door?  To  see  the 
world  and  eternity  alike  through  the  medium  of  his 
teaching?  No  doubt,  the  pastures  of  the  world  are 
fat  and  succulent ;  but  before  we  are  filled,  the 
Wolf  cometh,  and  the  Hireling  fleeth,  and  we  are 
at  the  mercy  of  the  cruel  teeth.  The  fall  of  a  life 


I  AM  THE  DOOR 


I39 


built  on  the  sands  of  this  world  is  fatal  and  final. 
The  Door  of  the  Sheepfold  is  always  open.  Have 
you  gone  in? 

Let  us,  then,  pray  — 

That  we  may  abide  in  him  and  there  find  safety. 
Let  us  pray  that  we  may  so  be  in  him  that  all  our 
thoughts  and  desires  may  be  approved  by  him,  and 
that  he  may  be  ever  our  inspiration. 

O  God,  Who  art  the  unsearchable  abyss  of 
peace,  the  ineffable  sea  of  love,  the  fountain  of 
blessings,  and  the  bestower  of  affection,  Who  send- 
est  peace  to  those  who  receive  it ;  open  to  us  this 
day  the  sea  of  Thy  love,  and  water  us  with  plen¬ 
teous  streams  from  the  riches  of  Thy  grace,  and 
from  the  most  sweet  springs  of  Thy  benignity. 
Make  us  children  of  quietness  and  heirs  of  peace. 
Enkindle  in  us  the  fire  of  Thy  love ;  sow  in  us  Thy 
fear ;  strengthen  our  weakness  by  Thy  power ;  bind 
us  closely  to  Thee  and  to  each  other  in  one  firm 
and  indissoluble  bond  of  unity;  through  our  Lord 
and  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  • 

“I  am  the  door,”  our  Lord  said,  “by  me  if  any 
man  enter  in  he  shall  be  saved,  and  shall  go  in  and 
out  and  find  pasture.”  Enter  in,  that  is,  to  the 
sheep-fold,  which  is  the  place  of  Christ’s  rule,  the 
place  where  are  gathered  all  those  who  are  in  him. 


140 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


It  is  that  state  of  salvation  that  we  enter  when  we 
'‘put  on”  Christ.  It  is  the  same  truth  that  we 
have  heard  our  Lord  elsewhere  teaching,  that  in 
Him  is  the  approach  to  the  Father.  “There  is  none 
other  name  under  heaven  given  among  men  where¬ 
by  we  must  be  saved.” 

Is  it  true  that  we  are  inclined  to  stop  our  thought 
at  the  point  where  it  touches  our  union  with  our 
Lord  and  his  mystical  Body?  I  sometimes  feel 
that  that  is  a  danger.  It  is  so  hard  to  take  in  all 
aspects  of  the  truth  that  we  let  ourselves  rest  in  a 
partial  statement  of  it  which  therefore  has  the  af¬ 
fect  of  an  untruth.  Our  emphasis  falls  upon  the 
fact  that  we  are  in  Christ — “in  Christ,”  thus  in 
some  degree  obscuring  the  fact  that  Christ  is  the 
Door  opening  to,  the  Way  leading  to  the  Father. 
Our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father  through  the  In¬ 
carnate  Son  who  is  the  one  mediator  between  God 
and  man.  What  I  am  trying  to  suggest  is  this 
whether  our  personal  religion  is  not  sometimes  de¬ 
fective  through  a  lack  of  explicit  realization  of  our 
relation  to  the  Father;  whether  we  are  not,  all  un¬ 
consciously,  no  doubt,  resting  in  the  Mediator, 
rather  than  being  brought  by  the  action  of  the 
Mediator  to  an  apprehension  of  our  union  with  the 
Father.  Our  life  of  union  is  a  life  “in  Christ,”  that 
is,  we  are  united  to  his  humanity;  but  to  the  end 
that  through  his  humanity  which  is  personally 


I  AM  THE  DOOR 


141 


united  to  his  divinity  we  in  turn  should  attain  union 
with  the  divine  nature  and  find  our  ultimate  rest 
in  God.  Indeed,  we  do  not  reach  a  final  statement 
of  our  fellowship,  until  it  is  stated  as  fellowship 
with  the  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Ghost,  three  Per¬ 
sons  in  one  God.  Union  is  only  completely  real¬ 
ized  as  union  with  the  Blessed  Trinity  in  the  splen¬ 
dor  of  the  Beatific  Vision. 

This  promised,  we  may  go  back  to  our  Lord’s 
self-presentation  as  the  Door.  It  is  through  him 
that  we  have  access  to  the  Father.  And  as  his 
life  work  issues  in,  and  is  consummated,  by  his 
death,  it  is  upon  that  Atoning  death  that  we  center 
our  attention.  “When  thou  didst  overcome  the 
sharpness  of  death,”  we  say,  thou  didst  open  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  to  all  believers.” 

The  meaning  of  the  Atonement  is  best  under¬ 
stood  by  means  of  the  symbol  that  our  Lord  used 
in  this  connection,  that  of  the  Good  Shepherd.  Or¬ 
dinarily  we  do  not  find  statements  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Atonement  very  comprehensible.  We  lose 
ourselves  in  speculation  as  to  how  one  can  sutler 
for  another,  or  how  God  can  accept  the  sufferings 
of  one  who  has  not  sinned  as  a  substitute  for  any 
atoning  action  by  those  who  are  guilty.  Such  spec¬ 
ulation  seems  to  carry  us  far  away  from  the  Gospel 
presentation  of  the  relation  of  our  Lord’s  activity 
to  us.  In  our  Lord’s  own  symbol  of  his  relation 


142 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


to  us,  and  action  for  us,  we  get  the  needed  note — 
the  note  that  we  will  do  well  to  hold  to,  the  note  of 
self-identification  with  man.  The  Good  Shepherd 
does  not  stand  apart  from  the  flock  in  solitary  suf¬ 
fering;  he  suffers  through  and  because  of  his  self- 
identification  with  them.  His  sufferings  are  not 
something  which  have  “merit,”  and  are  applied  to 
men  externally,  in  a  mechanical  manner;  but  some¬ 
thing  that  men  are  assumed  to  enter  and  have 
applied  to  them. 

Men  go  into  God  through  him,  the  Door.  They 
become  one  with  him  and,  so  sharing  his  life,  his 
experience,  it  -  results  that  his  sufferings  become 
theirs.  We  must  beware  in  religion  of  all  external 
machinery,  of  all  action  of  God  conceived  as  out¬ 
ward  and  compulsory.  The  action  of  our  Lord  in 
the  Incarnation  and  Atonement  is  only  comprehen¬ 
sible,  as  saving  action  for  the  individual,  as  the  in¬ 
dividual  comes  to  participate  in  it.  The  Incarna¬ 
tion  must  be  imparted  to  us  by  our  being  assumed 
into  the  Incarnate  Body,  and  then  because  of  that 
assumption  we  partake  of  the  sufferings  and  share 
in  the  Atonement.  The  sufferings  of  Christ  are 
extended  to  us  by  virtue  of  our  incorporation  in 
him.  The  sufferings  of  the  Christian  are  not 
meaningless  things,  but  are  the  extension  to  him 
of  the  experience  of  his  Master.  For  the  sheep  go 
in  through  him;  their  entrance  to  God  is  through 


I  AM  THE  DOOR 


M3 


participation  in  the  Christ-experience.  They  must 
recapitulate  that:  in  them  the  Christ-experience  re¬ 
peats  itself.  That  is  really  what  is  meant  by  fol¬ 
lowing  the  example  of  Christ.  The  theory  that  has 
been  so  popular  of  late  years,  and  of  which,  per¬ 
haps,  Tolstoy  is  the  best  exponent,  that  the  imita¬ 
tion  of  Christ  means  the  imitation  of  his  social  con¬ 
duct,  with  some  attempt  at  detailed  copying  of  his 
poverty  and  self-denial,  hardly  touches  the  fringe 
of  the  imitation  of  Jesus.  To  be  poor  because 
Jesus  was  poor;  to  be  kind  because  Jesus  was  kind ; 
seems  to  me  a  wholly  misdirected  way  of  going 
about  a  true  imitation,  because  it  is  so  completely 
external.  The  true  imitation  starts  with  the  fact 
of  our  union  with  our  Lord,  in  the  sense  that  I  have 
been  describing,  in  order  that  being  in  him  and  he 
in  us,  his  life  may  be  reflected  in  us:  that  is,  our 
sufferings  may  be  his  sufferings,  our  joys  his  joys, 
our  works  his  works.  As  his  experience  was  so 
all-embracingly  human  it  may  be  repeated  under 
the  external  setting  of  any  human  life.  It  is  not 
true  that  in  order  to  be  a  Christian,  to  live  the 
Christ-life,  one  has  to  repeat  the  external  setting 
of  our  Lord’s  human  life,  to  reproduce  the  incidents 
of  Nazareth  and  Galilee.  One  is  by  no  necessity 
nearer  our  Lord  on  a  shoe-makers  bench  than  on  a 
throne.  One  may  abandon  wealth  to  serve  God, 
but  one  may  also  use  wealth  in  the  service  of  God. 


144 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


The  annals  of  sanctity  protest  against  the  literalism 
of  the  Tolstoyan  theory.  St.  Francis  is  no  more  a 
saint  than  St.  Louis ;  and  neither  the  poverty  of  the 
one,  nor  the  kingdom  of  the  other,  created  his  sanc¬ 
tity  ;  but  the  life  of  the  Saviour  which  was  in  both 
alike.  It  is  a  wretched  assumption  that  you  can 
attain  to  conformity  to  Christ  by  some  outer  change 
in  the  manner  of  your  life.  If  John  Fox  was  a 
great  Christian  it  was  not  by  virtue  of  any  eccen¬ 
tricity  of  dress  or  manner;  if  Tolstoy  had  peace 
with  God  it  was  not  because  he  dressed  and  lived 
like  a  peasant;  nor  is  the  Christian  character  of 
an  Andrewes  or  a  Laud  doubtful  because  they  lived 
in  the  usual  state  of  bishops  of  their  times.  The 
life  of  union  is  possible  anywhere  and  shows  itself 
in  the  abandonment  of  self,  utter  and  unstinted,  to 
the  will  of  God,  in  the  will  to  make  all  the  facts  of 
one’s  life  the  matter  of  sacrifice,  the  expression  of 
the  Spirit  of  Christ  that  dwells  in  us. 

This  self-surrender  to  the  will  of  Christ  that  one’s 
life  may  express  that  will  results  in  the  Christian 
life  as  a  life  visibly  dominated  by  the  mind  of 
Christ.  They  who  have  entered  by  the  Door  be¬ 
come  filled  with  the  Spirit  and  God-possessed. 
They  also  go  out;  that  is,  they  henceforth  live 
their  lives  in  the  world,  in  whatever  station  God 
may  call  them  to,  in  the  light  and  leading  of  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  whom  they  serve  and  whose  they 


I  AM  THE  DOOR 


*45 


are.  They  manifest  what  they  have  become.  They 
bear  fruit  abundantly — those  Fruits  of  the  Spirit 
which  are  the  evidences  of  the  Spirit’s  energetic 
presence.  They  “find  pasture”  in  whatsoever 
place  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  they  should  be. 
There  he  provides  for  them,  provides  the  food  that 
shall  sustain  their  life  in  him,  provides  the  activity 
which  abundantly  occupies  the  energies  of  their 
lives.  They  do  not  conquer  the  world  for  Christ 
by  despising  it,  but  by  finding  in  it  the  opportunity 
of  service.  It  is  God’s  world,  and  therefore  their 
world.  With  matchless  sweep  of  vision  the  Apos¬ 
tle  says:  “all  things  are  yours;  whether  Paul  of 
Apollos  or  Cephas,  or  the  world,  or  life,  or  death, 
or  things  present,  or  things  to  come ;  all  are  yours : 
and  you  are  Christ’s,  and  Christ  is  God’s.” 

The  inner  action  of  Christ  must  precede  the 
outer  action.  “They  go  in  and  out.”  And  the  focus, 
so  to  say,  of  this  inner  action  of  Christ’s  Spirit  is 
the  conscience.  I  am  afraid  that  there  are  many 
who  think  trivially  of  their  conscience.  It  is  not 
to  them  the  voice  of  the  indwelling  Spirit,  a  source 
of  continual  guidance  in  which  they  can  perceive 
the  communication  of  the  mind  of  Christ  to  them ; 
but  a  source  of  dissatisfaction  and  unrest.  This 
appears  in  man’s  attempt,  ever  renewed,  to  substi¬ 
tute  something  external  for  the  voice  of  the  Spirit. 
No  doubt  it  is  true  that  our  consciences  need  edu- 
(n) 


146 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


cation  and  training;  but  it  is  neither  education  nor 
training  to  take  the  easy  path  of  substituting  some 
other  voice  for  that  which  is  the  organ  of  God’s 
speech  to  us.  We  need  all  the  helps  that  we  can 
get,  but  we  need  to  use  them  as  helps,  not  as  final 
authorities.  Any  book  is  dangerous,  if  it  lead  us 
to  confide  in  maxims  rather  than  the  light  of  the 
Spirit.  Any  confessor  is  dangerous,  if  we  come  to 
depend  on  him  rather  than  on  the  voice  of  God 
speaking  in  our  souls.  What  we  want  on  our  jour¬ 
ney  through  life  is  a  chart  to  sail  by,  not  a  tug-boat 
to  drag  us.  Our  constant  tendency  is  to  lean  on 
something  other  than  God.  To  excuse  ourselves  in 
the  taking  of  the  easy  way  we  exaggerate  our 
ignorance  and  incapacity,  we  look  on  ourselves  as 
spiritual  babes,  incapable  of  walking  on  our  own 
feet,  and  feeding  ourselves  with  our  own  hands. 
Because  we  find  sympathy  and  advice  pleasant  we 
are  always  seeking  it,  disregarding  the  debilitating 
effect  it  may  have  upon  our  souls.  So  we  accus¬ 
tom  ourselves  to  run  to  others  rather  than  to  God, 
and  do  not  learn  to  listen  to  the  voice  of  the  Di¬ 
vine  Teacher.  Yet  he  says,  ‘‘Ye  shall  all  be  taught 
of  God.” 

I  would  like  to  point  out  that  the  Sacrament  of 
Penance  was  instituted  for  the  remission  of  sins 
and  the  imparting  of  sacramental  grace.  It  was 
not  appointed  as  a  means  of  getting  rid  of  the 


I  AM  THE  DOOR 


147 


moral  responsibility  of  guiding  our  lives  by  the  in¬ 
ner  voice  of  God.  It  was  not  appointed  to  enable 
us  to  escape  the  spiritual  trouble  of  making  up  our 
own  minds.  It  was  not  appointed  to  relieve  us  of 
responsibilty  for  the  results  of  our  own  action. 
The  ends  of  the  Sacrament  of  Penance  have  no 
necessary  connection  with  the  direction  of  the 
souls.  Going  to  confession  is  not  going  to  talk  to 
a  priest,  it  is  going  to  talk  to  God,  and  there,  for 
most  part,  it  ought  to  stay.  All  priests  are  able  to 
administer  the  Sacrament  of  Penance;  few  are  fit¬ 
ted  to  become  directors  of  souls. 

That  is  not  a  matter  for  regret,  for  few  souls 
need  any  other  direction  than  that  which  God  gives 
them  through  the  conscience.  Their  very  ordinary 
problems  of  Christian  living  would  present  no  dif¬ 
ficulties  to  them  if  they  would  listen  attentively  to 
the  inner  voice.  If  we  realize  that  grace  is  the 
presence  of  our  Lord  in  our  souls,  and  that  we 
have  access  to  the  Father  through  his  Son,  Jesus 
Christ,  we  shall  feel  that  we  have  a  guide  that  is 
sufficient  in  the  emergencies  of  life.  There  is  no 
doubt  of  that  inner  voice,  if  we  will  but  lis¬ 
ten.  It  is  the  special  promise  of  the  Christian  cov¬ 
enant  that  God  himself  shall  be  our  guide  and 
friend. 

In  saying  this  I  am  not  for  a  moment  forgetting 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  direction  of  souls,  and 


148 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


that  such  direction  is  a  most  valuable  part  of  Chris¬ 
tian  practice.  But  what  is  direction?  It  is  the 
bringing  to  bear  the  knowledge,  the  insight,  the  ex¬ 
perience,  of  the  expert,  upon  the  complex  prob¬ 
lems  of  spiritual  living,  for  the  purpose  of  aiding 
those  who  are  as  yet  unskilled  in  the  life  of  sancti¬ 
ty.  Direction  is  direction  in  the  spiritual  life.  A 
director  is  not,  nor  ought  any  priest  to  be  regarded 
as,  an  expert  answerer  of  conundrums,  or  a  bureau 
of  information,  still  less  as  an  exterior  conscience. 
Direction  is  a  very  serious  matter,  and  should  not 
be  resorted  to  except  in  serious  affairs.  Direction 
is  not  a  synonym  for  good  advice.  We  need  to 
rise  to  the  spiritual  plane  where  we  go  in  and  out 
through  Christ,  and  find  that  enough. 

But  this  is  a  day  of  second-hand  knowledge  of 
all  sorts.  We  are  content  to  hear  about  things 
rather  than  know  about  them.  The  mind  seems  to 
be  regarded  as  an  indefinitely  expansive  reservoir 
into  which  we  can  pour  floods  of  unassorted  facts 
to  its  infinite  betterment.  Education  tends  to  be 
reduced  to  a  continuous  moving  picture  show,  the 
spectator  of  which  is  supposed  to  be  benefited  by 
the  sight  of  anything,  no  matter  how  utterly  un¬ 
related  to  his  own  life  and  previous  training. 
“Knowledge  made  easy”  is  the  motto  of  the  time. 
But  real  knowledge  cannot  be  made  easy,  for  it  im¬ 
plies  mental  discipline  of  a  high  order.  Least  of  all 


I  AM  THE  DOOR 


HP 

can  religious  knowledge  be  made  easy.  Non-super¬ 
natural,  non-mystical  religion  can,  no  doubt  be 
made  easy ;  it  is  taught  at  the  “movies” 
of  many  places  of  popular  preaching.  And 
even  when  the  ideal  is  purer,  there  are 
found  many  who  decline  intellectual  and  spiritual 
effort,  and  are  content  with  hearing  about  religion. 
So  religion,  to  give  it  still  that  name,  tends  to  be¬ 
come  second-hand ;  the  imitation  of  some-one  else’s 
religion ;  not  the  religion  of  personal  experience, 
not  the  forming  of  Christ  in  us.  But  the  only  re¬ 
ligion  that  has  any  vitality  is  the  religion  of  per¬ 
sonal  experience.  The  attainment  of  that  is  a  high 
and  difficult  task,  the  outcome  of  serious  work  with 
ourselves.  And  therein  lies  the  explanation  of  so 
much  that  seems  to  be  religion,  and  also  of  a  good 
deal  of  revolt  from  religion.  The  religion  of 
Christ  is  proposed  to  one,  and  what  he  perceives  in 
it  is  a  difficult  discipline,  checking  and  interfering 
with  his  passions  and  appetites,  humbling  his  pride, 
and  obstructing  what  he  considers  to  be  his  liberty ; 
and  he  will  have  none  of  it ;  but  in  the  name  of 
free  thought  and  human  rights  tramples  it  under 
his  feet.  Back  of  how  much  unbelief,  if  we  could 
only  get  at  the  facts,  should  we  find  the  revolt  of 
self-will  against  the  restraints  of  religion,  against  the 
pleading  of  conscience  for  self-control?  I  read  the 
other  day  of  a  man  who  thus  revolted  from  re- 


150  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

ligion  and  put  himself  deliberately  under  the  in¬ 
struction  of  an  atheist  that  he  might  once  for  all 
get  rid  of  the  discomfort  of  sin.  Fortunately,  it 
was  a  vain  attempt;  and  the  Spirit  presently  con¬ 
quered  him.  But  without  going  as  far  as  that, 
how  many  cases  there  are  where  the  quest  of  re¬ 
ligious  experience  is  declined  because  of  the  initial 
demands  that  a  quest  promising  any  success  makes 
upon  the  activities  of  man. 

There  is  a  quite  different  case  in  which  the  spir¬ 
itual  experience  is  avoided,  but  for  much  the  same 
reason — the  hard  demands  it  makes.  It  is  the  case 
of  a  person  who  entirely  accepts  the  religion  he  is 
taught,  and  acquiesces  in  its  truth.  He  does  the 
things  that  whatever  authority  he  is  under  proposes 
to  him.  He  passes  for  a  very  good  sort  of  Chris¬ 
tian,  a  most  respectable  member  of  the  church.  But 
his  acquiescence  in  religious  teaching  is  very  far 
from  being  the  same  thing  as  the  assimilation  of 
truth ;  the  truth  he  accepts  is  not  digested  and  made 
into  the  bone  and  tissue  of  a  spiritual  life.  They 
are  low  forms  of  life,  the  Lichens  and  Algae,  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  They  are  very  difficult  to  deal 
with  just  because  of  their  passive  acceptance  of  all 
teaching.  They  are  such  perfect  transmitters  that 
the  spiritual  currents  generate  no  heat  in  them. 
They  are  careful  of  forms,  and  curious  about  ritual, 
and  (it  is  about  the  only  way  in  which  they  show 


I  AM  THE  DOOR 


I5  1 

vitality)  intolerant  of  changes  in  religious  practice. 
They  will  attend  divine  worship  and  receive  the 
sacraments  with  some  regularity.  But  there  are 
in  them  no  smoldering  fires  of  zeal,  no  inner  heat, 
which  will  some  day  break  forth  in  the  flames  of 
love.  Perhaps  what  they  lack  is  the  imagination 
which  reveals  the  possibilities  of  faith.  They  can¬ 
not  be  made  to  conceive  the  Christian  faith  as 
dynamic,  having  transforming  power — as  an  organ 
of  vision  revealing  to  its  possessor  the  secrets  of 
the  spiritual  world. 

The  only  adequate  religion  there  is,  is  the  religion 
of  experience ;  and  the  more  complete  the  religion, 
the  deeper  the  experience  it  can  reveal  to  us.  But 
the  acquisition  of  experience  means  the  applica¬ 
tion  of  religion  in  its  fullness  to  the  facts  of  life. 
It  is  here  clearly  a  case  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
suffering  violence  and  the  violent  taking  it  by  force. 
We  cannot  dream  our  way  to  experience,  we  have 
to  force  it,  each  one  for  himself.  Others  can  help 
us  up  to  a  certain  point ;  they  can  tell  us  where  and 
how  to  work;  but  no  one  can  do  the  work  for  us. 
A  first-hand  knowledge  and  experience  is  essen¬ 
tial. 

We  get  some  light  on  this  matter  by  noting  the 
way  in  which  our  Lord  taught.  “All  these  things 
spake  Jesus  unto  the  multitude  in  parables;  and 
without  a  parable  spake  he  not  unto  them.”  The 


*52 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


function  of  the  parable  is  to  call  out  effort,  to 
stimulate  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  powers  to 
activity.  It  excites,  in  the  first  place,  curiosity; 
and  with  ineffective  dreamers  and  indifferent  lis¬ 
teners  it  never  gets  beyond  that — they  simply  won¬ 
der  what  it  means  and  never  find  out.  But  in  those 
who  are  capable  of  spiritual  response  there  is  call¬ 
ed  into  action  the  energy  that  seeks  to  know.  They 
come  to  our  Lord  with  their  question  :“What  might 
this  parable  be?”  And  to  them  the  answer  is: 
“Unto  you  it  is  given  to  know  the  mysteries  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.”  Those  mysteries  our  Lord  un¬ 
folds  to  all  earnest  seekers — to  them  he  says :  “Now 
the  parable  is  this.”  The  mysteries  of  the  king¬ 
dom  remain  mysteries  to  those  who  are  content  to 
have  them  so.  The  difficulties  of  faith  will  remain 
ever  such  to  those  whose  eyes  have  not  been 
opened  nor  ears  unclosed  by  spiritual  discipline. 
But  to  those  who  would  know  the  mysteries  of  the 
kingdom,  there  is  “A  door  opened  in  heaven,”  and 
that  door  is  the  living  Jesus  thro’  whom  we  may  “go 
in  and  out  and  find  pasture.”  Jesus  is  the  Door 
to  all  mvsteries  whether  of  faith  or  life.  The  se- 
cret  is  to  know  him  with  a  living  apprehension,  to 
know  him  and  be  known  of  him.  “And  hereby  do 
we  know  that  we  know  him,  if  we  keep  his  Com- 
mnndments.”  So  our  Lord  himself  says:  “If  any 
man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine. 


I  AM  THE  DOOR 


*53 


whether  it  be  of  God,  or  whether  I  speak  of  my¬ 
self.” 

The  way  is  very  plain:  the  putting  ourselves  to 
school  to  the  will  of  God  as  manifested  in  Christ. 
There  is  no  other  way  to  knowledge  than  the  way 
of  humble  obedience.  This  is  the  true  simplicity 
of  the  gospel,  that  the  truth  is  revealed  to  those 
who  follow  in  the  way  in  single-hearted  obedience. 
This  is  a  way  that  the  ‘‘Wayfaring  man”  need  not 
“err  in”;  for  it  is  not  a  way  of  science  or  philos¬ 
ophy,  but  a  way  of  desire,  a  wav  motived  by  love. 
If  we  seek  first,  in  our  quest  of  spiritual  experi¬ 
ence,  to  find  Jesus,  and  be  not  turned  aside  after 
any  other :  if  when  we  are  told,  “behold  he  is  in  the 
desert”  of  “a  reduced  Christianity”  we  “go  not 
forth :”  or  “behold,  he  is  in  the  sleeping  chambers” 
of  humanitarianism,  we  “believe  it  not;”  but  abide 
“in  the  way  going  up  to  Jerusalem”  there  to  share 
in  the  experiences  of  his  suffering  life,  surely  he 
will  reveal  himself  to  us.  Through  this  life  that 
is  carefully  shaped  according  to  his  revealed  will, 
light  will  break;  into  the  midst  of  the  daily  duties 
devoutly  performed,  he  will  come.  Into  the  inner 
chamber  of  prayer  where  we  have  locked  ourselves 
“for  fear  of  the  Tews”  of  earthly  desires  and  dis¬ 
tractions,  he  will  come  and  stand  and  show  us  his 
wounds  and  make  us  sure  of  his  Resurrection  and 
abiding  Presence  and  give  us  his  gift  of  peace. 


*54 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


Those  who  have  passed  in  by  the  Door,  and  have 
known  Jesus,  are  ever  ready  to  go  out  in  his  name 
to  testify  of  him  to  the  world.  Those  who  have 
known  our  Lord  burn  with  the  message  which  they 
feel  that  they  must  deliver.  It  is  a  message  about 
Jesus — that  Jesus  is  here.  All  the  world’s  night 
before  his  Advent  was  filled  with  human  cries  to 
God :  cries  of  men  prostrate  before  the  sacrifices 
they  had  invented,  praying  that  they  might  be  de¬ 
livered  from  their  sense  of  defilement,  and  yet  clear¬ 
ly  conscious  that  it  was  “not  possible  that  the  blood 
of  bulls  and  of  goats  should  take  away  sins’’ ;  men 
crying  out  of  sorrow,  out  of  suffering,  out  of  dis¬ 
aster,  and  hearing  “no  voice  nor  any  that  answer¬ 
ed”  :  men  struggling  with  the  environing  mystery  of 
life  and  finding  it  impenetrable,  finding  the  hea¬ 
vens  over  their  head  brass  and  the  earth  under 
their  feet  iron,  echoing  to  them  the  sound  of  their 
own  voices.  What  was  there  to  sustain  human 
hope?  Only  that  once  and  again  the  silence  of  the 
night  was  broken  by  the  voice  of  some  Watchman 
crying  from  his  tower :  only  that  at  intervals  the 
darkness  was  shattered  by  voices  crying,  “I  have 
found,  I  have  heard,  I  have  seen.”  There  was  a 
voice  out  of  the  heart  of  the  whirlwind,  there 
a  whisper  to  a  man  crouched  at  the  mouth  of  a  cave, 
there  was  a  crying  as  of  a  God  with  a  broken  heart, 
“Oh  that  my  people  would  hearken  unto  me,” — but 


I  AM  THE  DOOR 


*55 


the  silences  were  long.  What  the  voices  told  men  was 
“God  is  coming.”  And  then  there  was  another 
sound,  a  sound  of  singing  in  the  midnight,  and  dawn 
broke  with  a  shout  upon  the  mountain.  It  was  the 
hour  of  fulfilled  hope,  of  rewarded  expectancy,  of 
crowned  success :  for  the  message  was  Immanuel, 
God  with  us.  Jesus  is  come. 

I  sometimes  wonder  whether  anyone  can  appre¬ 
ciate  the  salvation  which  is  in  Jesus  except  that  it 
comes  to  him  as  deliverance.  No  doubt,  each  ex¬ 
perience  has  its  own  wonder  and  its  own  sweetness. 
No*  doubt  there  is  a  joy  which  has  its  own  peculiar 
light  of  gladness  for  those  who  have  kept  the  “dew 
of  the  morning”  which  came  to  them  in  their  bap¬ 
tism,  who  have  never  known  what  it  is  to  be  with¬ 
out  God  in  the  world.  But  is  there  not  a  deeper 
gladness  in  the  hearts  of  the  Twice-born?”  In 
the  experience  of  those  who  have  felt  what  rescue 
means?  Surely  there  is  in  our  Lord’s  ministering 
a  note  of  very  special  tenderness  for  such.  The 
lost  sheep  gets  carried  in  his  bosom;  the  lost  coin 
is  found,  with  the  calling  of  neighbors  together  to 
great  rejoicing;  the  lost  son  is  recovered  with  feast¬ 
ing;  and  the  sound  of  this  gladness  is  echoed  in 
the  very  heavens  where  the  angels  rejoice  in  the 
presence  of  God.  The  saints  touch  this  when  they 
say:  “Oh  Felix  Culpa” — Oh  happy  fault,  that  re¬ 
vealed  the  hidden  depths  of  the  loving  kindness  of 


156  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

our  God.  Those  who  know  the  greatness  of  their 
escape,  whose  sense  of  redemption  has  in  it  the 
mingled  awe  and  wonder  of  the  great  deliverance 
which  has  snatched  them  from  the  shadows  of  eter¬ 
nal  death,  have  upon  them  the  sense  of  urgency  in 
the  delivery  of  their  message  to  their  brethren ;  they 
have  in  their  hearts  for  their  fellows  the  pity  of 
those  who  have  known.  The  “Once-born”  may 
minister  with  love  and  kindness,  it  is  only  the 
“Twice-born”  who  feel  the  pressure  of  the  Atone¬ 
ment,  who  can  in  the  sublimity  of  their  self-giving 
wish  themselves  “Anathema  from  Christ”  for  their 
brethren. 

The  message  that  we  have  is  as  the  message  of 
the  sunlight  to  the  dark  places  of  the  earth — God 
has  revealed  himself,  Jesus  is  here.  If  we  would 
bear  any  effective  message  to  others  we  must  have 
found  that  true  for  ourselves.  We  cannot  effec¬ 
tively  preach  other  men’s  religion ;  we  can  only  ef¬ 
fectively  preach  our  own.  Only  converted  men, 
whether  in  pulpits  or  out  of  them,  can  preach  the 
Gospel  of  a  great  deliverance.  Perhaps  it  is  be¬ 
cause  there  are  so  many  unconverted  men  and 
women  in  our  churches,  that  we  find  the  Gospel  of 
sunlight  and  fresh  air  and  pure  water  a  tolerable 
expression  of  the  Gospel  of  him  who  found  the 
burden  of  men’s  sins  so  heavy  that  he  was  in  agony 
in  the  bearing  of  them,  and  his  sweat  was  as  it 


I  AM  THE  DOOR 


*57 


were  great  drops  of  blood  running  down  to  the 
ground.  The  Gospel  of  the  sunlight  is  the  Gospel 
of  those  to  whom  sin  is  meaningless,  and  atone¬ 
ment  for  sin  a  theological  figment.  There  are  large 
sections  of  society  which  find  such  a  Gospel  a  pleas¬ 
ant  substitute  for  the  “terror  of  the  Lord”  where¬ 
with  the  Apostle  “persuaded  men.”  Smug  respect¬ 
ability,  wealth  of  doubtful  origin,  social  life  which 
has  thrown  off  the  restraints  of  “puritanism,”  find 
not  intolerable  a  religion  whose  demands  can  be 
satisfied,  not  by  that  “Godly  sorrow  that  worketh 
repentance,”  but  by  checks  for  social  service.  But 
sin,  lawlessness,  contempt  of  law  and  authority, 
hatred  of  anything  that  is  in  the  nature  of  criticism, 
increases  and  will  increase ;  for  if  we  can  corrupt 
society  by  money,  we  cannot  thereby  reform  it. 
The  grace  of  God  which  alone  can  make  this  world 
better  cannot  be  “purchased  by  money.” 

Never  was  there  greater  need  of  outspokenness 
in  the  presentation  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ  than 
there  is  to-day.  Never  was  there  greater  need  to 
insist  that  the  religion  of  Jesus  is  the  religion  of 
the  Cross,  and  that  the  need  of  the  human  soul 
which  it  comes  to  minister  to  is  the  need  of  sal¬ 
vation.  This  needs  to  be  preached  to  the  girls  who 
haunt  our  streets  at  night,  and  to  the  boys  in  bars 
and  gambling  dens,  who  fancy  that  they  are  begin¬ 
ning  to  “see  life” :  yes,  but  it  needs  most  of  all  to 


*58  THE  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

be  preached  in  churches  where  well  dressed  and 
respectable  people  are  lulled  to  the  sleep  of  spirit¬ 
ual  death  by  the  superstition  that  they  can  be  saved 
by  philanthropy,  by  philosophy,  by  aesthetics.  The 
burden  of  Jesus’  preaching  was,  “repent  ye  and  be¬ 
lieve  the  Gospel.”  That  message  has  grown  very  dim 
in  these  times.  If  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  are 
to  become  the  kingdoms  of  God  and  his  Christ  there 
is  need  that  they  be  once  more  confronted  with 
their  own  wickedness,  their  alienation  from  God, 
by  the  Gospel  call  to  repentance — a  call  smothered 
by  no  veils  of  apology,  softened  by  no  dextrous 
adaptation  to  the  lives  of  luxurious  sinners,  emascu¬ 
lated  by  no  removal  of  its  sterner  elements ;  but  a 
call,  plain  and  naked  in  its  simple  depiction  of  the 
hatred  of  God  for  sin,  and  his  love  for  sinners. 
That  Gospel  has  never  lost  its  power.  It  is  as 
powerful  to-day  as  ever  it  was.  When  is  the 
Church  going  to  resume  the  preaching  of  it  ?  When 
is  it  going  to  stop  speaking  to  men  of  the  twen¬ 
tieth  century  as  though  they  were  saints  whose 
chief  obligation  is  to  show  their  sanctity  by  liberal 
contributions,  and  speak  to  them,  as  our  Lord  and 

i 

his  Apostles  spoke  to  men,  as  those  who  need  sal¬ 
vation  through  the  limitless  grace  of  God? 

Are  we  ready  to  face  the  world  and  life  as  those 
who  have  experienced  this  limitless  grace,  who 
^ave  found  salvation  in  Christ,  and  attained  peace 


I  AM  THE  DOOR 


*59 


“through  the  blood  of  his  Cross?”  Surely  if  we 
have  “gone  in”  through  him  to  the  joys  of  the  re¬ 
deemed  life,  that  life  of  intimate  union  with  him  in 
which  his  will  has  become  our  will,  and 
his  mind  our  mind,  and  we  have  in  all 
respects  offered  our  lives  to  him  as  the  medium 
of  his  self-manifestation :  then  we  are  ready  to 
“go  out”  and  bear  our  witness  to  the  “truth  as  it 
is  in  Jesus,”  to  the  truth  that  “God  is  in  Christ,” 
“reconciling  the  world  unto  himself.”  We  know 
this  because  we  have  found  God  in  Christ  and  have 
been  reconciled  to  him.  That  is  the  very  heart  of 
our  experience.  Are  we  not  bound  to  speak  of 
this ;  nay,  are  we  not  glad  to  speak  of  this,  to  those 
of  the  children  of  our  Father  who  have  lost  their 
way?  You  shrink  from  producing  your  own  per¬ 
sonal  experience :  but  that  is  the  one  effective  and 
completely  unanswerable  argument  for  the  truth  of 
the  gospel.  It  is  not  at  all  like  speaking  of  your 
own  virtues — you  would  naturally  not  do  that. 
One  does  not  speak  of  what  one  has  given 
to  others,  but  one  is  glad  to  speak  of 
what  others  have  given  to  us.  Thus  we  should 
be  glad  to  tell  of  our  Lord’s  gifts  to  us — his  gift  of 
pardon,  his  gift  of  himself  in  our  communions,  the 
richness  of  his  answers  to  our  prayers.  That  we 
have  found  peace  and  go  in  and  out  in  him  and 
find  pasture — this  will  bring  hope  and  encourage- 


160  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

ment  to  other  souls.  If  only  we  can  learn  to  do  it  sim¬ 
ply  and  naturally,  speak  of  our  Friend  as  of  other 
friends.  One  dislikes  to  think  of  the  many  souls 
one  has  not  helped  in  the  course  of  one’s  life,  souls 
that  were  sent  us  by  God  that  we  might  speak  to 
them  of  him.  And  we  missed  the  moment,  and  it 
did  not  come  again.  There  are  only  certain  mo¬ 
ments  when  we  can  helpfully  speak,  for  there  needs 
a  certain  receptivity  in  the  souls  that  we  speak  to. 
If  we  are  spiritually  alert  we  perceive  the  moment. 
You  have  known  it  in  such  and  such  a  case;  you 
saw  the  need,  you  felt  a  certain  pleading  of  the 
other  that  you  would  help,  the  words  trembled  on 
your  lips  and  then  you  did  not  say  them,  but  said 
some  other  thing  which  shattered  the  tension  of 
the  sympathy  and  forfeited  the  opportunity  and  it 
has  never  returned.  Such  moments  are  among 
one’s  bitterest  memories,  are  they  not?  We  stood 
then  in  the  very  place  of  our  Lord,  with  his  mes¬ 
sage  committed  to  us, — and  we  failed.  What  mat¬ 
ter  of  repentance!  God  grant  that  we  may  not  be 
met  by  their  reproachful  eyes  at  the  last  great  day ! 

“I  say  to  thee,  do  thou  repeat 

To  the  first  man  thou  mayest  meet 
In  lane,  highway,  or  open  street, 

That  he,  and  we,  and  all  men  move 
Under  a  canopy  of  love 
As  broad  as  the  blue  sky  above.” 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD. 
Let  us  listen  to  the  words  of  our  Lord  — 


I  Am  the  Good  Shepherd. 

Let  us  try  to  picture  to  ourselves — 


© 


UR  Lord  preaching.  There  is  a  crowd  gath¬ 


ered  here  by  the  lakeside  and  our  Lord 
has  gone  into  Peter’s  boat  and  sits  there 
talking  to  the  people.  See  their  faces  eagerly 
turned  to  him.  They  have  heard  much  instruction 
in  religion  from  the  authorized  teachers  of  their 
nation,  but  it  has  not  been  at  all  like  this.  The 
Scribes  explain  God’s  law.  Jesus  explains  Gcd. 
If  once  he  can  make  God  plain  to  them  they  will 
be  ready  to  obey  him.  The  reason  men  do  not  obey 
God  is  because  they  do  not  succeed  in  seeing  him, 
but  only  some  caricature  of  him.  When  once 
we  see  God  all  desire  to  disobey  passes.  That  is 

161 

(12) 


162 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


why  our  Lord  talks  about  the  Father  rather  than 
about  the  law.  He  wants  them  to  see  what  God  is 
like  rather  than  what  God  commands.  And  they 
will  learn  what  God  is  like  as  they  learn  of  Jesus. 
He  is  the  complete  expression  of  the  Father’s  mind. 
The  Jews  were  so  lost  in  a  false  reverence  of  God 
that  they  would  not  even  speak  the  Divine  Name. 
Our  Lord  speaks  plainly  and  simply  of  God  as  one 
whom  they  ought  to  know.  They  filled  men  with 
fear  least  they  should  break  one  of  the  least  of  his 
commandments;  Jesus  filled  men  with  love  so  that 
they  longed  to  be  like  the  Father.  When  men  fear 
to  break  God’s  law  they  will  invent  ways  of  keep¬ 
ing  the  letter  of  it  while  violating  its  spirit ;  but 
when  men  love  God  their  Father  they  will  be  care¬ 
ful  to  hold  to  the  very  spirit  of  all  his  commands. 
With  what  different  feelings  we  hear  the  words, 
Lawgiver ,  and  Father ?  That  marks  the  passing 
from  the  attitude  of  the  Scribe  to  that  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian. 

Consider ,  first  — 

That  as  our  Lord’s  eyes  move  over  these  up¬ 
turned  faces,  he  reads  the  souls  that  are  mirrored 
there.  He  will  shape  his  teaching  to  the  needs  of 
these  souls.  Our  Lord’s  teaching  is  always  per¬ 
sonal,  directed  to  perceived  needs.  Did  you  ever 
study  the  faces  of  a  crowd  ?  Each  face  is  the  record 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  163 

of  a  history.  We  can  read  some  of  the  coarser  indi¬ 
cations;  we  can  see  hardness,  and  cruelty,  and  de¬ 
bauchery,  and  pride,  written  there.  But  the  sub¬ 
tler  indications  are  beyond  our  ken.  Our  Lord 
saw  them.  When  he  read  men’s  thoughts  it  was, 
no  doubt,  in  the  reflection  of  their  thoughts  upon 
their  faces.  What  a  piteous  thing  a  crowd  must 
have  been  to  him :  the  record  of  all  the  hideous 
forms  of  sin  by  which  men  may  insult  the  will  and 
scorn  the  love  of  God,  with  here  and  there  some 
relieving  .marks  of  a  virtue,  some  traces  of  an  as¬ 
piration,  some  foot-print  of  an  accomplished  ser¬ 
vice.  Here  is  that  field  where  he  must  sow  the 
seed  of  the  Gospel — the  way-side,  the  rock,  the 
thorns,  the  good  ground.  Consider,  that  our  Lord 
shows  no  hesitation  or  failure  of  hope  as  he  goes 
about  this  task.  One  would  think  that  the  faces 
might  have  imposed  silence ;  but  they  only  call  out 
love  and  sympathy.  So  it  has  been  ever  since — the 
work  of  the  Gospel  has  been  the  teaching  of  multi¬ 
tudes  whose  spiritual  history  is  written  on  their 
sin-worn  faces;  ever  trying  to  find  expressions  of 
the  truth  that  will  penetrate  to  the  sin-hardened 
consciences,  and  reveal  to  them  the  truth  about  the 
Father — that  the  Father  himself  loveth  them  and 
willeth  that  they  shall  come  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  truth  and  be  saved. 


164 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


Consider ,  second  — 

In  the  crowds  that  listen  to  him  our  Lord  sees 
your  face,  and  reads  in  it  your  spiritual  history. 
He  is  interested  in  it — that  is  the  great  fact  for 
you;  and  he  reveals  the  interest  of  the  Father.  We 
often  find  difficulty  in  grasping  that  fact.  We  can 
think  of  the  Father  as  interested  in  humanity;  of 
our  Lord  as  coming  to  save  humanity.  But  that 
thought  may  leave  us  unmoved,  that  thought  is  not 
energetic  enough.  Can  you  think  of  the  Father  as 
interested  in  you;  of  our  Lord  as  having  come  to 
save  you?  What  will  give  vitality  to  our  religion, 
is  just  that  perception  of  personal  interest.  Our 
Lord  is  interested  in  your  personal  history,  in  the 
failures  and  accomplishments  of  your  life.  He 
has  some  personal  words  for  you.  Much  of  our 
success  in  the  spiritual  life  depends  on  our  finding 
that  personal  word.  That  is  the  Gospel  message 
for  me.  We  read  our  Gospel  and  we  lay  it  down 
again  with  a  feeling  that  we  are  familiar  with  that 
chapter  which  we  have  been  reading;  it  is  a  beauti¬ 
ful  chapter,  but  it  does  not  mean  any  more  to  me 
to-day  than  it  did  when  I  read  it  the  last  time; 
nothing  new  or  personal  has  come  out  of  it.  That 
spells  failure,  does  it  not?  He  that  hath  ears  to 
hear,  let  him  hear.’’  lAnd  somehow,  to-day,  we 
have  had  no  hearing  ear.  For,  can  we  doubt  it? 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  10  j 

there  was  some  special  word  there  for  us.  We 
know  how  it  is  when  it  finds  us,  that  “winged 
word” ;  that  word  of  warning,  of  rebuke,  of  en¬ 
couragement,  of  hope;  how  it  comes  with  a  sense 
of  direct  message,  so  that  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  has  spoken,  has  taken  of  the  thing3 
of  Christ  and  shown  them  unto  us.  Would  that 
we  might  never  close  our  Bibles  except  that  word 
come. 

Let  us,  then,  pray  — 

That  our  Lord  may  seek  us  and  find  us  and  re¬ 
veal  himself  to  us,  and  that  we  may  not  let  him  go 
except  he  bless  us. 

Show  the  light  of  Thy  countenance  upon  us,  O 
Lord,  that  the  going  forth  of  Thy  word  may  give 
light  and  understanding,  to  nourish  the  hearts  of 
the  simple ;  and  that  while  our  desire  is  set  on  Thy 
commandments,  we  may  receive  with  open  heart 
the  Spirit  of  wisdom  and  understanding;  through 
the  same  Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord. 

The  sight  we  so  often  meet  on  country  roads,  and 
which  rises  to  the  mind  when  the  sheep-flock  is 
spoken  of,  is  quite  different  from  what  our  Lord 
had  in  mind  when  he  made  the  shepherd  and  his 
flock  the  symbol  of  the  relation  between  himself 
and  his  people.  We  recall  a  huddled  and  bewild- 


1 66 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


ered  flock  driven  along  the  dusty  highway  by  men 
and  boys  and  dogs,  to  me  always  a  very  pathetic 
sight  and  the  reverse  of  inspiring.  But  to  our 
Lord  a  shepherd  meant  a  man  going  out  of  the  pas¬ 
ture  lands  followed  by  a  flock  with  which  his  rela¬ 
tion  was  intimate  and  familiar.  He  had  lived  with 
his  sheep  till  there  was  a  mutual  knowledge:  “my 
sheep  hear  my  voice;  and  I  know  them  and  they 
follow  me/’ 

Hence  he  could  take  the  shepherd  as  a  figure  of 
himself.  He  is  the  leader,  not  the  driver,  of  the 
flock.  Our  Lord’s  leadership  manifests  infinite 
patience,  and  long-suffering,  as  indeed  does  all 
God’s  dealing  with  us.  As  we  look  back  into  our 
own  experience  one  of  the  things  which  must  surely 
strike  us  is  the  long-suffering  of  God.  Our  atti¬ 
tude  toward  God  has  been  that  of  petulant  child¬ 
ren,  impatient  of  life’s  discipline  and  not  seeking  to 
understand  it,  only  anxious  to  be  rid  of  any  limita¬ 
tions  which  discipline  imposes,  set  upon  the  accom¬ 
plishment  of  our  own  wills.  We  can  see  now  in 
the  light  of  our  subsequent  spiritual  experience 
much  of  the  stupidity  and  sin  that  marred  our  lives ; 
and  we  wonder  at  our  escape  into  anything  like  a 
godly  life ;  but  what  we  most  of  all  wonder  at  is  the 
patience  of  God  which  has  prevented  him  from 
leaving  our  lives  to  their  devices,  to  wreck  them¬ 
selves  upon  whatever  rock  they  chose  to  mistake 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  1 67 

for  the  Fortunate  Isles,  to  be  shattered  by  whatever 
storm  of  passion  we  thought  it  the  inalienable  lib¬ 
erty  of  our  manhood  or  womanhood  to  indulge  in. 
We  find  now  that  through  it  all  the  eye  of  the  Good 
Shepherd  was  upon  us,  his  rod  and  his  staff  ready 
for  our  needs. 

There  have  been  dark  days  in  the  Church  when 
those  who  represent  Christ  as  the  Shepherd  of  his 
flock  have  forgotten  the  gentleness  of  Christ  and 
the  manner  of  his  dealing:  when  they  have  substi¬ 
tuted  the  drive  of  intolerance  for  the  attraction  of 
the  luminous  character  of  the  divinely  patient  Shep¬ 
herd.  But  the  only  kind  of  leadership  which  in 
the  long  run  is  effective,  is  the  leadership  of  spirit¬ 
ual  enlightenment  which  goes  before  the  flock  to 
show  the  way.  Are  not  some,  at  least  of  the  troub¬ 
les  of  the  Church  at  present  due  to  the  fact  that 
its  leadership  does  not  inspire  the  highest  confi¬ 
dence?  One  is  conscious  of  belonging  to  a  flock, 
bewildered  and  uncertain  in  many  matters,  which 
looks  to  its  natural  leaders  for  help  and  comfort 
and  finds  in  them  harassed  men  of  business,  or 
timid  men,  anxious  to  keep  peace  at  all  costs,  or  ob¬ 
viously  confused  men  who  attempt  no  leadership  at 
all.  Here  and  there,  to  be  sure,  is  a  man  with  a 
purpose  to  rule,  but  to  rule  by  the  imposition  of  his 
own  will,  displaying  the  spirit  of  one  who  drives, 
and  reminding  one  of  the  Western  farmer  getting 


1 68  THE  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

his  flock  to  the  market,  not  of  the  Good  Shepherd 
who  goes  before  his  sheep. 

What  the  church  needs  to-day,  we  are  widely 
told,  is  more  authority;  meaning  thereby  power  to 
enforce  submission  to  discipline  of  some  kind.  To 
me,  force  seems  the  most  futile  thing  in  the  world, 
effecting  at  most  an  unconvinced  and  hollow  uni¬ 
formity.  All  the  vagaries  of  individualism  are 
better  than  the  level  of  an  intellectual  desert  that 
is  misnamed  peace.  What  we  sorely  need  is  not 
more  authority,  but  authority  of  a  different  order. 
I  believe  that  human  beings,  self-willed  as  they  are, 
are  ready  to  follow  a  leader  who  appeals  to  them 
through  the  spiritual  ideals  of  the  Gospel,  who 
gives  them  the  spectacle,  not  of  a  great  politician, 
or  a  great  man  of  business,  but  of  a  great  Chris¬ 
tian.  You  can  never  make  the  individual  members 
of  any  group  of  men,  no  matter  with  what  care  se¬ 
lected  and  combined,  think  alike  in  all  respects. 
Charles  the  Fifth,  after  he  had  for  years  exerted  all 
the  power  of  his  Empire  in  the  vain  attempt  to  re¬ 
duce  Europe  to  a  rigid  and  uniform  ecclesiastical 
system,  gave  up  the  attempt  and  spent  his  declin- 
ing  years  tinkering  clocks.  He  found  that  he  could 
make  no  two  clocks  run  together  for  any  length  of 
time.  If  he  had  started  life  as  a  clock-tinker  in¬ 
stead  of  so  ending  it,  Europe  might  have  been 
spared  much  of  blood  and  tears.  But  men  can  be 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD 


169 


drawn  to  tolerance  and  peace  through  the  attraction 
of  splendid  ideals ;  they  can  be  brought  to  see  that 
their  inevitable  divergencies  of  thought  are 
of  less  importance  than  the  unity  of  ideal  which  is 
present  in  all  who  seek  sanctity  through  union  with 
Incarnate  God.  As  the  lives  of  individual  Chris- 

a 

tians  recede  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  past  we 
note  that  it  is  that  which  in  life  divided  them  which 
tends  to  lose  importance  and  vanish;  and  that  that 
which  abides  is  that  which  united  them  to  our  Lord 
and  to  one  another.  An  Augustine,  a  Francis,  a 
Vincent  de  Paul,  a  Laud,  a  Ken,  a  Law,  a  New¬ 
man,  a  Keble,  a  Pusey,  stand  out  to-day  in  our 
minds  detached  from  the  clouds  and  smoke  of  con¬ 
temporary  controversy,  as  men  who  embody,  with 
whatever  personal  variation,  the  life  experience  of 
their  Master.  And  we  can  see  that  it  was  their 
single-hearted  devotion  to  that  Master  which  made 
their  lives  significant  in  the  annals  of  'Christendom. 
A  man’s  significance  to  the  Church,  and  his  true 
call  of  leadership,  will  ultimately  have  to  be  mea¬ 
sured  by  what  of  Christ  there  was  in  him.  We  are 
ready,  are  we  not?  to  trust  any  man  in  whom  we 
see  that  the  place  of  leader  means  going  before  the 
flock  in  the  spirit  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  and  whose 
ambition  is  the  ambition  to  make  Christ  better 
known,  who  is  determined  to  know  nothing  among 
us  but  Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified. 


170 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


All  this  of  course  is  not  to  say  that  it  is  of  no  im¬ 
portance  what  we  think,  or  believe.  It  is  of  great 
and  permanent  importance  what  we  think  and  be¬ 
lieve  :  but  beyond  that  is  the  importance  of  hoiv  we 
think  and  believe  it — of  what  spirit  we  are  of.  I 
myself  have  arrived  at  certain  convictions  as  the 
result  of  many  years  spent  in  seeking  the  truth.  I 
hold  those  convictions  with  all  the  strength  of  my  be¬ 
ing.  I  cannot  conceive  of  their  being  shaken.  But  I 
am  not  therefore  inclined  to  make  them  the  measure 
of  other  men.  The  truth  of  God  is  too  great  and 
many  sided  to  be  fully  comprehended  by  any  one 
mind;  it  has  too  many  facets  for  a  single  mind  to 
gather  all  its  light.  We  need  therefore  to  hold  the 
truth  we  have  gained,  not  in  indifference,  but  in 
love :  asking  ourselves  what  is  the  effect  of  truth  in 
life.  Does  the  truth  men  claim  to  possess  create 
in  them  the  Spirit  of  Jesus,  or  does  it  create  the 
spirit  of  intolerance  and  uncharity?  The  denun¬ 
ciation  of  others  can  be  no  healthy  growth  from  the 
truth  that  we  possess.  If  what  we  think  to  be 
truth  is  really  such,  and  we  have  assimilated  it,  the 
outcome  will  be  that  we  see  our  Lord  more  clearly 
and  have  a  better  understanding  of  his  mind.  The 
more  people  differ  from  us  and  denounce  us,  the 
more  we  shall  be  led  to  tolerance  and  patience  and 
long-suffering.  The  motto  we  shall  have  before 
us  is:  “when  he  was  reviled,  he  reviled  not  again; 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  171 

when  he  suffered,  he  threatened  not;  but  commit¬ 
ted  himself  to  him  who  judgeth  righteously.”  We 
.shall  “seek  by  well-doing  to  put  to  silence,”  not 
only,  “the  ignorance  of  foolish  men,”  but  the  mis- 
judgments  and  intolerance  of  learned  men.  We 
need  to  remember  that  the  faith  a  man  actually 
lives  by  is  quite  often  a  different  faith  from  that 
which  he  professes.  If  we  hold  the  Catholic  faith 
and  do  not  live  the  Catholic  life  of  love  and  ser¬ 
vice  and  patience,  there  is  something  vitally  wrong 
with  the  method  of  our  holding  it. 

It  is  well,  therefore,  in  our  appreciation  of  the 
Catholic  faith  to  apply  it  first  of  all  to  ourselves. 
Our  instinctive  tendency  is  to  apply  it  to  others.  I 
suppose  we  very  rarely  detach  ourselves  from  the 
mass  of  people  and  see  ourselves  alone  before  God, 
tinder  his  eye.  That  is  essential  to  our  getting  to 
know  ourselves,  as  distinguished  from  our  theory 
about  ourselves.  Theory  and  truth  in  this  matter, 
I  suppose,  are  never  exactly  equivalent,  but  our 
constant  effort  must  be  to  make  them  match.  That 
is  what  self-examination  and  meditation  are  in¬ 
tended  to  bring  about — to  individualize  the  appli¬ 
cation  of  our  faith.  Faith  without  works,  that  is, 
results  in  life,  is  dead.  We  must  think,  not  of  sin¬ 
ners,  but  of  this  sinner;  not  of  liars,  but  of  this 
liar;  not  of  uncharitable  persons,  but  of  this  un¬ 
charitable  person.  It  is  easy  to  condemn  sin,  and 


172  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

rather  useless,  unless  we  condemn  it  as  we  have 
identified  ourselves  with  it.  Our  own  weakness  is 
not  infrequently  the  result  of  some  tolerated,  half- 
perceived  sin  in  ourselves. 

“Perchance  some  rotten  root  of  sin  in  thee, 

Has  made  thy  garden  cease  to  bloom  and  glow: 

Hast  thou  no  need  from  thine  ownself  to  flee?” 

To  seek  thus  to  individualize  our  faith  is  to 
stress  our  personal  relation  to  our  Lord.  It  is  this 
relation  that  he  brings  out  in  the  parable  of  the 
Good  Shepherd.  He  here  emphasizes  his  relation 
to  men  as  an  individual  relation.  “I  know  my 
sheep.”  That  goes  very  deep,  There  is  much  of 
consolation  in  this  truth  that  we  are  known  of  our 
Lord,  that  we  are  not  lost  in  the  flock,  but  that  his 
eye  notes  the  peculiarity  of  the  individual  soul.  We 
shrink  a  little,  perhaps,  from  the  thought  that  all 
that  we  are  he  knows — that  he  sees  through  all 
that  I  seem  to  myself  to  be,  or  would  be  thought  to 
be,  or  even  pretend  to  be.  We  have  doubts  at 
times  of  ourselves — what  is  the  depth,  the  sincer¬ 
ity,  the  reality  of  our  religion?  But  he  has  no 
doubts;  he  is  certain  when  we  are  not.  “I  know 
my  sheep.” 

But  when  we  think  into  it  far  enough  there  is 
much  consolation  in  this  thought  that  our  Lord 
knows  us.  I  am  never  quite  sure  that  I  know  my- 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD 


*73 


self,  never  quite  certain  of  the  purity  of  my  motive 
— that  there  is  not  some  selfish  consideration  creep¬ 
ing  in  and  vitiating  my  action.  I  am  haunted  by 
doubts  of  my  singleness  of  purpose.  By  the  way, 
it  is  strange  we  are  so  ready  to  judge  the  actions 
of  others  when  we  cannot  get  final  certainty  as  to 
our  own !  I  tremble  when  I  have  to  make  impor¬ 
tant  decisions  lest  my  reading  of  the  mind  of  our 
Lord  be  clouded  by  the  impulse  of  my  own  will. 
But  where  we  are  thus  hesitant,  our  Lord  knows. 
He  knows  what  is  in  man,  down  to  his  most  hidden 
impulses,  his  most  secret  motives.  This  is  ground 
for  rejoicing,  for  however  bad  I  am,  however  much 
of  a  failure  I  may  seem  myself,  it  would  be  neither 
consolation  nor  help  to  think  that  our  Lord  did  not 
know.  It  is  just  because  he  does  know  that  he  can 
help.  He  sees  my  failures;  but  he  also  sees  my 
limitations,  my  incapacity,  my  weakness.  And  be¬ 
cause  he  sees  my  case  thus  thoroughly  he  can  help. 
He  is  master  of  the  case ;  he  provides  for  each  spec¬ 
ial  need. 

For  it  is  only  because  our  Lord  knows  that  he 
can  effectively  provide.  We  rely  on  his  Provi¬ 
dence  with  perfect  trust,  because  we  are  sure  of 
his  perfect  love  and  wisdom  in  dealing  with  us.  If 
we  have  become  sure  of  this  there  can  be  no  re¬ 
bellion  against  his  Providence.  How  much  of  the 
uinrest  of  our  lives  comes  from  this,  that  we  do  not 


1 74 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


accept  the  providential  ordering  of  life  as  being  the 
thing  that  is  best  for  us — the  thing  that  we  need — 
that  the  divine  Wisdom  has  fitted,  if  I  may  so  ex¬ 
press  it,  the  frame  about  our  lives  that  best  brings 
out  the  meaning  of  the  picture;  that  he  has  given 
us  just  such  a  measure  of  discipline,  as  is  best  suit¬ 
ed  to  the  formation  of  our  spiritual  character.  St 
Paul  throws  light  on  this  problem  when  he  says: 
“We  know  that  all  things  work  together  for  good 
to  them  that  love  God.”  It  emphasizes  this  impor¬ 
tant  fact,  that  the  effect  of  God’s  providential  ac¬ 
tion  is  conditioned  by  the  spirit  in  which  we  receive 
it.  As  the  presence  of  some  dement  in  one’s  phy¬ 
sical  nature  will  change  that  which  is  to  most  men 
food  to  poison  for  us;  so  the  presence  of  an  ad¬ 
verse  spiritual  disposition  will  change  the  intended 
blessings  of  God’s  providence  to  spiritual  disaster. 
What  might  have  been  accepted  thankfully,  or  at 
least  submissively,  as  a  means  of  discipline  for  our 
lives,  being  rejected  with  impatience  and  rebellion, 
turns  to  a  stumbling  block  and  means  of  offence. 
If  the  presence  of  Christ  among  men  did  very  effec¬ 
tively  judge  them,  revealing  through  the  attitude 
they  took  toward  him  the  actual  state  of  their 
souls ;  if  his  arraignment  before  human  tribunals 
was  less  a  judgment  of  him  than  of  Caiaphas,  of 
Herod,  of  Pilate;  so  the  presence  of  God  to-day  in 
the  providential  setting  of  our  lives  is  a  constant 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD 


175 


judgment  of  those  lives  in  that  it  reveals  their  in¬ 
ner  meaning,  calls  out  into  the  daylight  what  is 
their  spiritual  worth.  Calls  it  out  not  that  God 
might  see — he  knows  already — but  that  we  may  see 
and  know  ourselves.  It  is  the  goodness  of  God 
leading  us  to  repentance.  While  our  lives  are  go¬ 
ing  on  passively  we  are  able  to  make  ourselves  be¬ 
lieve  that  our  profession  of  religion  is  a  true  and 
loyal  allegiance  to  the  will  of  God,  that  we  love  our 
Lord  and  are  devoted  to  his  service.  We  sit  calm¬ 
ly  under  our  gourd  and  thank  God  for  the  shade 
of  it.  But  when  the  worm  eats  it  and  it  withers 
and  we  are  left  exposed  to  the  blazing  sun,  we  are 
angry ;  we  protest  that  “we  do  well  to  be  angry  even 
unto  death.”  But  such  dealing  with  us  does  not 
reveal  God  as  a  hard  task-master  exacting  to  the 
uttermost  the  tale  of  bricks ;  it  does  not  show  him 
as  a  grasping  householder,  gathering  where  he 
has  not  strewed ;  but  as  the  Good  Shepherd  who 
knows  his  sheep — knows  them  far  better  than  they 
know  themselves.  He  is  then  the  Good  Physi¬ 
cian  revealing  the  disease  which  is  silently  eating 
out  the  spiritual  life.  He  reveals  tares  where  we 
had  all  along  thought  wheat  was  growing.  And 
that  revelation  of  the  self  which  praised  God  only 
because  it  was  comfortable  and  at  ease,  but  is  harsh 
and  bitter  and  resentful  when  God  “touches  his 


176  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

bone  and  his  flesh,”  is  God’s  method  of  telling  us 
that  our  life  needs  change  of  some  sort. 

It  is  the  call  to  repentance;  but  it  is  not  always 
that.  We  need  not  to  make  the  inference  that  dis¬ 
cipline  is  the  revelation  of  unknown  sinfulness. 
Whether  it  is  or  no  will  become  obvious  from  our 
way  of  meeting  it.  If  we  meet  it,  as  I  said,  with 
bitterness  and  rebellion,  then  sin  that  we  did  not 
suspect  is  made  manifest :  but  if  we  meet  it  with 
no  such  spirit,  but  rather  rejoice  that  we  “are  count¬ 
ed  worthy  to  suffer”  for  him,  then  we  may  be  sure 
that  the  will  of  the  Good  Shepherd  is  leading  us 
on  to  greater  perfectness.  What  we  are  being 
called  to  is  closer  union  with  the  life  of  our  cruci¬ 
fied  Lord.  What  is  being  offered  us  is  a  greater 
share  in  his  Cross.  In  the  narrative  of  our  Lord’s 
passion  a  certain  man  “who  passed  by,  coming  out 
of  the  country”  was  seized  and  made  to  bear  our 
Lord’s  cross.  How  like  an  accident  that  seems — 
the  mere  sport  of  chance.  We  can  imagine  the  as¬ 
tonishment  of  the  man,  his  fear,  his  rebellion. 
What  had  he  to  do  with  all  this?  But  are  we 
wrong  in  seeing  in  this  “chance,”  this  “piece  of  bad 
luck,”  the  very  thing  that  brought  the  man  to  the 
knowledge  of  Jesus  and  the  salvation  that  is  in 
him?  The  way  in  which  he  is  mentioned  by  St. 
Mark  implies  that  he  and  his  family  were  well 
known  in  the  Christian  community  when  the  Gcs- 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD 


1  77 


pel  was  written.  The  accidents  of  life,  the  luck, 
good  or  bad,  which  befalls  us,  they  are  significant 
items  in  God’s  dealing  with  us,  voices  of  the  Good 
Shepherd  calling  us,  means  which  God  uses  to  win 
us  and  to  call  us  into  closer  union  with  himself. 

Wherever  I  am,  if  I  am  there  by  God’s  will  and 
not  through  my  own  self-will,  there  it  is  best  for 
me  to  be,  and  to  abide  till  God’s  will  made  known 
to  me  sends  me  elsewhere.  I  am  put  into  a  place 
of  great  responsibility;  but  if  I  am  certain  that 
God  placed  me  there,  let  me  meet  the  responsibil¬ 
ities  of  the  place,  quietly  and  humbly  as  the  ser¬ 
vant  of  God.  I  am  left  in  obscurity ;  that,  then, 
is  the  best  place  for  me,  and  I  do  not  murmur. 
The  kind  of  life  God  assigns  me  is  the  kind  I  need 
in  order  to  work  out  my  salvation.  There,  and 
not  otherwhere,  can  I  attain  my  highest  spiritual  de¬ 
velopment.  That  is  the  answer  to  our  restlessness 
under  the  circumstance  of  life.  Hardness  or  ease, 
pain  or  joy,  he  placed  me  there.  He  knows,  and  I, 
knowing  that  he  knows,  do  not  try  to  see  “the  dis¬ 
tant  way,”  being  content  with  the  “one  step”  that 
I  do  see.  But  I  do  know  that  the  way  ends  in  the 
Unveiled  Presence — the  Presence  that,  being 
veiled,  is  with  me  here  and  now“  ‘Are  we  not  all 
guests  of  Allah?’  says  the  Arab  of  the  desert,  as  he 
welcomes  the  stranger  to  his  tent  and  showers  up¬ 
on  him  all  that  hospitality  can  suggest.  The  sim- 
(13) 


178  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

pie  words  well  indicate  the  situation.  ‘Guests  of 
Allah'  are  we  all  on  our  very  entrance  into  the 
world,  and  ‘guests  of  Allah’  we  remain  to  the  close 
of  our  sojourn.  We  are  partakers  of  a  store  that 
we  have  not  prepared,  spectators  of  a  beauty  we 
have  not  conceived  or  executed,  and  sharers  in  a 
glory  we  only  dimly  understand.’  ” 

Thou  hast  been  with  me  in  the  dark  and  cold, 

And  all  the  night  I  thought  I  was  alone: 

The  chariots  of  Thy  glory  round  me  rolled, 

On  me  attending,  yet  by  me  unknown. 

Clouds  were  Thy  chariot,  and  I  knew  them  not; 

They  came  in  solemn  thunders  to  my  ear; 

I  thought  that  far  away  Thou  hadst  forgot, — 

But  Thou  wert  by  my  side,  and  heaven  was  near. 

Why  did  I  murmur  underneath  the  night, 

When  night  was  spanned  by  golden  steps  to  Thee? 
Why  did  I  cry  disconsolate  for  light, 

When  all  Thy  stars  were  bending  over  me? 

The  darkness  of  my  night  hast  been  Thy  day; 

My  stony  pillow  was  Thy  ladder’s  rest; 

And  all  Thine  angels  watched  my  couch  of  clay 
To  bless  the  soul,  unconscious  it  was  blest. 

If  in  these  truths  we  have  found  the  stuff  of  our 
guidance,  it  is  because  of  some  kinship  with  our 
Lord,  some  mutual  knowledge.  “I  know  my  sheep 
and  am  known  of  mine.”  This  is  deeper  than 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD 


179 


knowing  about.  The  kind  of  knowledge  we  have 
of  our  Lord,  which  leads  us  to  hear  his  voice  and 
follow  him,  is  not  communicated  knowledge  about 
him,  but  is  knowledge  born  of  the  inner  sympathy, 
which  results  from  having  the  same  aim,  the  same 
mind.  If  this  were  not  so,  we  might  be  driven,  we 
should  never  follow.  Let  us  pause  for  a  moment 
and  think  just  how  such  knowledge  as  we  have  of 
our  Lord  has  come  to  us.  There  has  been,  of 
course,  the  external  teaching  about  him  which  is  as 
the  sign-board  that  directs  our  steps  in  the  right 
way.  There  has  been  the  effect  of  that  teaching 
seen  in  the  lives  of  others,  which  has  been  to  us  an 
indication  of  its  truth  and  efficacy.  But  our 
knowledge  contains  other  strands  beside.  What 
we  value  most  has  come  to  us  out  of  the  experience 
of  life,  out  of  our  consciousness  of  God’s  personal 
action  in  our  soul.  There  are  truths  that  have  been 
transmitted  in  our  experience  so  that  they  have  be¬ 
come  in  a  special  sense  ours.  To  take  but  one  ex¬ 
ample  :  we  have  all  of  us,  I  fancy,  learned  the 
strength  of  dependence,  that  truth  that  St.  Paul 
states  when  he  says,  “when  I  am  weak,  then  am  I 
strong.”  We  started  life  in  the  spirit  of  self-suf¬ 
ficiency  which  is  a  part  of  the  equipment  of  youth; 
and  then  life  closed  in  upon  us  and  we  experienced 
failure  after  failure.  And  out  of  this  “spoiling  of 
our  goods”  we  came  to  know  that  self-sufficiency  is 


I  80  the  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

weakness,  and  that  we  must  be  controlled  and  sup¬ 
ported  if  we  are  to  make  any  sort  of  success  of 
life.  We  have  ceased  to  look  on  life  as  a  field  of 
easy  conquests,  and  to  murmur  “who  is  sufficient 
for  these  things?”  In  our  failure  we  have  been 
driven  back  to  God  as  the  ultimate  and  real  source 
of  strength :  our  lives  have  become  trusting  and 
faithful — “all  my  fresh  springs  shall  be  in  thee.” 
Perhaps  we  cannot  follow  every  step  of  this  trans¬ 
mutation,  or  tell  how  or  when  it  took  place.  But 
we  know  that  it  has  taken  place  and  that  our  ma¬ 
ture  experience  is  one  of  humility  and  trust  where 
once  there  had  been  the  pride  of  self-reliance.  To 
this  extent  Christ  has  been  formed  in  us :  so  far 
we  know  him  and  his  power. 

Again  and  again  as  we  have  progressed  in  the 
power  of  spiritual  living  this  process  of  transmuta¬ 
tion  has  been  repeated,  whereby  a  truth  of  teach¬ 
ing  has  passed  into  an  acquired  truth  of  the  inner 
life.  In  some  instances  we  have  yielded  readily 
enough  to  our  Lord’s  guidance,  and  have  been 
glad  of  the  conviction  that  came.  But  other  cases 
have  presented  difficulty,  and  our  nature  has 
shrunk  back  when  we  saw  whither  we  were  being 
led — for  the  Good  Shepherd  leads  us  out  into  places 
where  naturally  we  would  not  go.  That,  of 
course,  is  the  inner  meaning  of  guidance — that  we 
are  enticed  by  our  trust  in  a  higher  wisdom,  we 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  l8t 

are  drawn  on  by  “the  bands  of  love.”  It  is  the 
sight  of  One  going  on  before  that  arouses  us  and 
brings  us  to  action.  With  our  eyes  fixed  on  the 
Good  Shepherd  we  can  forget  at  times  where  the 
path  runs  and  be  conscious  only  of  following  him. 
It  is  well  if  this  be  so  with  us,  and  the  burden  of 
the  way  be  lightened  because  we  are  sustained  by 
love.  For  the  path  that  begins  in  the  meadows  and 
runs  by  the  still  waters  goes  outward  and  upward, 
till  there  is  revealed  a  hill  in  the  distance,  and  on 
the  hill  stands  a  Cross. 

Are  we  ready  to  follow  as  far  as  that?  Or  are 
we  going  to  stop  where  the  road  slopes  upward? 
“I  lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep.”  Are  we 
ready  to  go  as  far  as  that?  There  are  many  ways 
of  laying  down  the  life;  every  life  must  find  some 
way,  must  it  not?  “Whosoever  will  save  his  life 
shall  lose  it ;  and  whosoever  will  lose  his  life  for 
my  sake  shall  find  it.”  We  must  find  some  way  of 
losing  ourselves  in  self-identification  with  our 
Lord.  “My  sheep  follow  me” — into  what  paths 
of  service? 

May  I  say  a  word  here,  not  to  everyone,  but  to 
any  one  into  whose  hands  this  book  may  fall  whose 
life  is  still  free  to  be  offered  wholly  to  our  Lord 
in  a  specially  consecrated  service?  There  are  those 
whom  our  Lord  calls  to  be  in  a  very  special  way 
his  ministers  to  others,  either  in  a  life  of  service 


182 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


or  in  a  life  of  prayer.  Of  such  we  say  they  have 
vocation,  whether  it  be  to  the  priesthood  or  the  re¬ 
ligious  life,  or  to  some  other  special  form  of  ser¬ 
vice.  To  such  our  Lord’s  words  may  be  applied 
in  a  very  special  sense  “My  sheep  hear  my  voice, 
and  I  know  them  and  they  follow  me.”  And  yet 
such  is  the  “disquietude  of  this  world,”  with  its 
many  disturbing  voices,  that  it  is  sadly  possible  for 
the  call  to  come  and  go  by  unheeded.  It  comes  or¬ 
dinarily  through  the  circumstances  of  our  life.  The 
young  find  life  opening  before  them  and  that  they 
are  free  to  choose  its  direction.  The  Providence 
of  God  has  “set  their  feet  in  a  large  room.”  They 
experience  the  exhilaration  of  freedom — that  “the 
world  is  all  before  them” ;  or  they  feel  responsibil¬ 
ity  for  it,  the  responsibility  to  direct  well  their 
choice.  In  such  cases  the  soul  offers  itself  to  our 
Lord  in  an  act  of  self-consecration  that  is  per¬ 
fectly  definite — offers  itself  to  his  holy  will  to  be 
guided  to  a  choice  for  future  which  shall  be  in  ac¬ 
cord  with  that  will.  And  then  it  should  listen ,  re¬ 
peating  the  act  of  self-oblation  from  time  to  time, 
especially  at  the  times  of  its  communion.  We 
should  always  assume  under  such  circumstances 
that  God  wants  a  special  service  from  us.  It  may 
be  a  service  “in  the  world,”  as  we  say;  or  it  may 
be  that  he  would  have  us  “sell  all  and  follow  him/' 
We  have  no  right  to  make  our  natural  impulses  and 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  183 

desires  the  test  in  such  a  case,  or  assume  that  we 
are  not  ‘‘fitted”  for  a  life  of  special  service.  Still 
less  have  we  the  right  to  make  the  opinions  of 
worldly  friends  and  relatives  the  test.  We  should 
in  the  first  instance  listen  only  to  God,  and  if  he 
“puts  into  our  minds  good  desires,”  if  the  thought 
of  special  consecration  grows  in  force  and  clear¬ 
ness  while  we  pray  day  by  day  for  guidance,  while 
we  offer  ourselves  with  growing  intensity,  we  must 
heed  this  as  the  voice  of  the  Divine  Shepherd  call¬ 
ing  his  sheep.  We  must  yield  ourselves,  and 
pray,  “draw  me  and  we  will  run  after  thee.”  We 
should  do  well  for  a  while  not  to  complicate  our 
seeking  by  looking  to  the  distracting  of  voices  of 
human  opinion  and  advice.  As  vocation  is  so 
purely  personal  a  transaction  between  God  and  the 
soul  it  is  best  kept  free  from  other  intervention  till 
the  time  comes  when  we  need  the  expert  advice 
that  shall  guide  our  final  decision.  The  experience 
of  many  years  has  convinced  me  that  vocations  are 
frequently  stifled  and  frustrated  by  the  asking  of 
advice  of  ignorant  or  interested  persons  at  a  period 
when  the  soul  should  be  simply  submitting  it¬ 
self  to  God.  For  our  Lord  does  not,  “strive,  nor 
cry/’  but  his  voice  comes  to  us  through  the  silence 
of  our  prayers,  in  the  hush  of  our  communions  in 
the  moments  when  we  have  “swept  and  garnished” 
the  house  of  our  life,  and  are  quietly  holding  open 


184 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


the  door  that  he  may  come  in.  “Behold,”  he  says, 
“I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock” ;  but  the  knocking 
is  so  gentle  that  the  sound  of  it  may  be  drowned  in 
the  shouting  of  our  passions,  in  the  tumult  of  a 
life  that  has  made  the  world  its  guest.  He  forces 
no  one’s  freedom,  he  compels  no  one  to  serve,  he 
constrains  no  one’s  love:  but  there  is  a  wistfulness 
in  his  voice  when  he  says ,(‘If  any  one  zvilleth  to 
come  after  me” — and  if  anyone  does  will,  then  he 
holds  out  to  them  the  priceless  guerdon  of  his  ser¬ 
vice,  the  privilege  of  union  with  him  in  his  redemp¬ 
tive  work,  the  high  reward  of  bearing  after  him 
his  Cross.  It  is  sad  to  think  how  many  lives  he 
has  fashioned  for  this  service  and  called  to  the 
privileges  of  the  ministry  have  let  the  call  pass  un¬ 
noticed,  and  in  their  heedlessness  or  in  their  fear 
“have  fled  and  hid  themselves  among  the  stuff”  of 
world-consecrated  interests. 

“I  lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep.”  We,  if  we 
are  faithful,  will  follow  thus  far,  finding  some  form 
of  self-giving  by  which  we  render  our  lives  back  to 
him.  But  we  are  liable  to  stop  there  in  thought — 
to  stop  at  the  point  where  we  have  gone  up  Cal¬ 
vary  with  him  and  have  seen  the  Cross.  That  mis¬ 
understanding  of  the  Cross  as  the  final  phase  of 
our  spiritual  experience  is  one  of  the  mistakes 
which  gives  to  the  life  of  the  Christian  an  aspect  of 
unnecessary  hardness.  The  Cross  is  not  a  stop- 


I  AM  THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  185 

ping  place.  It  was  not  final  in  our  Lord’s  life,  nor 
can  it  be  final  in  ours.  The  path  leads  up  the  hill 
where  the  Cross  rises  upon  the  summit;  but  when 
we  get  there  we  find  that  the  path  does  not  end  at 
the  foot  of  the  Cross  but  leads  on  over  the  hill. 
From  the  Cross-crowned  summit  there  is  revealed 
to  us  the  vine-covered  slopes  and  the  valleys  that 
laugh  and  sing  in  all  the  splendor  of  the  Promised 
Land.  “I  lay  down  my  life  that  I  might  take  it 
again,  I  have  the  power  to  lay  down,  and  I  have 
the  power  to  take  it  again.” 

And  we  follow  to  the  end,  beyond  the  Cross  to 
the  Risen  Life.  The  Risen  Life  is  not  altogether 
future  to  us,  we  enter  upon  it  even  now,  because 
we  are  even  now  in  Christ  and  have  a  share  in  all 
his  experience.  It  is  an  imperfect  view  of  the 
Christian  life  which  only  sees  it  as  crucified.  We 
are  not  only  crucified  with  Christ,  but  we  are  risen 
with  him, — we  are  risen  and  ascended  and  lifted 
up  to  dwell  with  him  in  heavenly  places.  We  are 
already,  if  we  have  been  found  faithful,  entered 
upon  our  Lord’s  life  of  triumph.  He  triumphs  in 
us  and  we  triumph  in  him.  This  is  not  a  mystic 
piece  of  symbolism  but  the  plain  fact  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  life,  a  matter  of  daily  experience,  if  we  will 
have  it  so.  The  power  and  presence  of  the  Risen 
and  Ascended  Jesus  has  entered  our  lives  and  we 
triumph  thereby.  We  triumph  over  pain,  over 


1 86 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


sin,  over  fear,  over  death.  If  we  are  using  our 
Lord’s  presence  our  days  are  marked,  not  by  de¬ 
feat,  but  by  victories.  Sin  and  failure  are  not  the 
characteristic  features  of  the  life  of  the  Christian, 
but  rather  its  conquests.  We  are  conquering  one 
by  one  the  temptations  that  beset  us,  we  are  winning 
one  by  one  the  virtues  that  are  in  him.  Not  fear 
and  shame  and  sorrow,  but  joy  and  gladness  are  in 
the  “dwellings  of  the  righteous/’  and  our  lives  ex¬ 
pand  with  the  happy  consciousness  of  our  victories. 
We  go  on  our  way  rejoicing,  as  pilgrims  of  hope, 
and  at  the  end  it  shall  be  written  of  us  as  of  St. 
Francis,  “he  died  singing.”  This  is  the  true  fol¬ 
lowing  of  Christ,  which  follows  to  where  he  is  now 
in  the  joy  of  his  triumph.  And  we  can  so  follow 
because  we  are  not  alone — he  is  with  us  all  the 
time. 


In  pastures  green?  Not  always;  sometimes  He 
Who  knoweth  best,  in  kindness  leadeth  me 
By  weary  ways,  where  heavy  shadows  be. 

And  by  still  waters?  No;  not  always  so; 
Oft-times  the  heavy  tempests  round  me  blow, 
And  o’er  my  soul  the  waves  and  billows  go. 

But  when  the  storm  is  loudest,  and  I  cry 
Aloud  for  help,  the  Master  standeth  by 
And  whispers  to  my  soul,  “Lo,  it  is  I." 


1  am  the  good  shepherd 


187 


Above  the  tempest  wild  I  hear  Him  say, 
“Beyond  this  darkness  lies  the  perfect  day, 

In  every  path  of  thine  I  lead  the  way.” 

So,  whether  on  the  hill-tops  high  and  fair 
I  dwell,  or  in  the  sunless  valleys  where 
The  shadows  lie — what  matter?  He  is  there. 


\ 


I  AM  THE  VINE. 


Let  us  listen  to  the  words  of  our  Lord 


I  Am  the  Vine. 

And  let  us  picture  to  ourselves — 

HE  meeting  of  a  Christian  congregation  in 
that  early  time  when  the  Church  was  suf¬ 
fering  persecution.  It  is  in  the  house  of 
some  well-to-do  member  of  the  Church,  situated, 
we  will  imagine,  in  the  suburbs  of  the  city.  It  is 
early  dawn,  and  the  light  is  streaming  up  the  East¬ 
ern  sky,  touching  the  hill-tops  with  rose  and  silver; 
but  down  here  in  the  valley  it  is  still  dark,  the 
shapes  of  things  are  indistinct  shadows.  Men  are 
coming  hastily,  yet  with  silent  steps,  to  the  gate  of 
the  Villa,  through  which  they  pass,  after  accustom¬ 
ed  signs  to  the  guardian,  and  go  into  the  room  pre¬ 
pared  for  their  worship.  It  is  a  strange  group  seen 
here  in  the  lamp-light,  a  group  in  which  social  dis- 

189 


190 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


tinction  has  no  place.  Here,  alone  in  the  world  per¬ 
haps,  you  can  see  men  and  women  of  all  states  of 
life,  not  simply  gathered  into  one  place,  but  fused 
by  some  invisible  power  into  a  unity.  Master  and 
slave,  soldier  and  civilian,  patrician  and  proletar¬ 
ian,  they  are  all  one  by  some  subtle  bond  that  they 
all  feel  and  act  upon.  They  are  lifted  out  of  their 
individual  separateness  and  knit  together  in  a  higher 
unity.  See  them,  as  the  bishop  and  his  attendant 
clergy  come  forth  and  take  their  places  about  the 
Holy  Table,  become  eagerly  attentive  to  his  words, 
joining  in  prayer  and  response,  as  moved  by  a  com¬ 
mon  impulse.  There  is  one  spirit  in  this  Body 
whose  members  are  so  divided  in  the  outer  world 
to  which  they  will  presently  go  back ;  and  we 
gather,  as  the  service  goes  on,  that  this  spirit  is  a 
response  to  some  unseen  Presence  that  they  all 
feel  and  are  certain  of ;  a  Presence  that  tends  more 
and  more  to  localize  itself  at  the  Holy  Table  where 
the  Sacred  Symbols  are  set  out  before  the  bishop — 
a  Presence  which  grows  in  distinctness  till  it  cul¬ 
minates  at  the  reception  of  the  Elements  in  a 
sense  of  personal  possession  and  joy. 

Consider ,  -first  — 

That  this  culmination  of  the  service  in  participa¬ 
tion  in  the  Communion  is  the  key  to  the  under¬ 
standing  of  the  unity  that  we  feel  among  these 


I  AM  THE  VINE 


191 

men  and  women.  They  are  one,  and  they  feel  that 
they  are  one,  because  they  have  been  gathered  into 
unity  with  their  living  Master.  What  we  have 
been  looking  at  is  no  act  of  commemoration  of  a 
dead  Lord,  but  is  intelligible  only  as  it  is  filled  with 
a  living  Presence.  Jesus  lives.  Jesus  is  here; 
and  his  Incarnate  Life  has  outspread  and  embraced 
all  these  and  gathered  them  into  union  with  him¬ 
self.  Their  perception  of  union  one  with  another 
is  the  result  of  their  being  in  him.  And  because 
they  are  in  him,  they  have  been  raised  to  a  higher 
equality,  in  the  presence  of  which  the  low  inequal¬ 
ities  of  human  society  vanish.  There  are  here  no 
distinctions;  no  rich  nor  poor;  no  bond  nor  free, 
but  all  are  one  in  Christ  Jesus.  They  have  been 
baptised  into  the  One  Body,  and  are  become  par¬ 
takers  of  the  One  Bread.  And  their  sense  of  their 
unity  is  so  vital  a  thing  that  it  will  not  vanish  when 
they  separate  after  the  Blessing  and  go  forth,  in 
the  now  full  light  of  the  morning,  to  their  various 
vocations.  They  will  carry  the  sense  of  their  re¬ 
lation  with  them,  and  when  they  meet  in  the  street, 
in  the  market  place,  in  the  service  of  the  house, 
there  will  be  a  smile  on  the  lips  and  a  light  will 
pass  from  eye  to  eye.  The  master  will  receive  the 
service  of  the  slave  with  a  sense  of  the  redeemed 
manhood  and  simple  human  dignity  of  the  servant 
which  will  make  him  gentle  and  grateful  for  the 


192 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


service  rendered.  The  slave  will  offer  his  service 
as  from  brother  to  brother,  in  the  memory  of  him 
who  was  among  his  brethren  as  one  that  serveth. 
This  which  seems  to  us  impossible,  was  then  pos¬ 
sible  because  of  the  deep  sense  of  the  brotherhood 
in  Christ  as  affecting  all  life  in  all  its  relations,  and 
not,  as  with  us,  certain  corners  of  life  labelled  ‘‘re¬ 
ligious.” 

Consider ,  second — 

That  is  the  misery  of  our  present  state,  that  we 
have  lost  all  the  keenness  of  the  sensation  of  unity. 
We  have  obliterated  the  sharpness  of  the  definition 
between  the  Church  and  the  world,  and  in  doing  so 
have  lost  the  sense  of  belonging  one  to  another  be¬ 
cause  we  first  belong  to  Christ.  Let  us  be  frank 
with  ourselves :  have  we  resumed  the  sense  of  so- 

1  • 

cial  and  class  distinction  that  the  first  enthusiasm 
of  the  Gospel  obliterated  among  those  who  formed 
the  early  Christian  assemblies?  Is  there  any  defi¬ 
nite  content  to  the  notion  “brother’’  in  our  minds? 
Do  we  feel  drawn  to  others  because  they  are  Chris¬ 
tians,  members  of  the  same  congregation,  worship¬ 
ping  at  the  same  altar,  receiving  the  same  sacra¬ 
ments?  Do  we  make  any  attempt  to  know  our 
brothers  and  sisters?  Do  we  ever  go  into  any 
house  and  say  we  have  come  because  we  are  of  the 
same  faith?  Are  we  even  interested  in  the  work 


I  AM  THE  VINE 


'9S 


that  certain  other  members  of  the  same  family  of 
God  are  trying  to  do  ?  Do  the  clergy  of  the  Church 
get  ready  sympathy  and  help  from  us  in  their  work, 
or  do  we  treat  it  as  a  matter  that  is  no  concern  of 
ours?  If  we  are  obliged  to  answer  such  questions 
as  these  in  a  way  that  we  feel  certain  that  no  mem¬ 
ber  of  the  congregation  we  have  been  thinking  of 
would  have  answered,  what  does  brotherhood  mean 
to  us — anything?  Conditions  of  life,  no  doubt, 
change;  but  have  they  changed  in  such  wise  as  to 
justify  the  present  lack  of  interest  in  one  another 
which  characterises  the  modern  Christian  congre¬ 
gation?  “The  brother  for  whom  Christ  died”  is 
as  much  a  reality  to-day  as  in  the  first  century.  Is 
he  a  reality  to  you  in  your  daily  life?'  To  whom 
does  the  common  participation  in  the  benefits  of  the 
Passion  and  Death  of  Christ  link  you  ? 

Let  us ,  then,  pray  — 

For  an  increased  sense  of  the  unity  of  the  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  Church  one  with  another.  Let  us  pray 
that  we  may  find  in  our  faith  a  bond  of  union  with 
all  that  share  it. 

Bless,  O  Lord  and  Father,  Thy  Family,  Re¬ 
deemed  by  the  Precious  Blood  of  Thy  dear  Son, 
and  enlightened  by  the  Gift  of  Thy  Holy  Spirit, 
and  fill  them  with  Thy  Spiritual  gifts;  grant  them 
love,  joy,  peace,  patience,  goodness,  gentleness, 
(14) 


1 94 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


hope,  faith,  charity ;  that  being  replenished  with  all 
Thy  gifts,  they  may  attain  their  desire  of  coming 
safe  unto  Thee;  through  Jesus  Christ,  Thy  Son, 
our  Saviour. 

•  ••*••• 

When  our  Lord  describes  his  relation  to  us  un¬ 
der  the  symbol  of  the  vine  and  branches  he  is  at¬ 
tempting  to  convey  to  us  some  notion  of  the  central 
mystery  of  the  Christian  life,  the  mystery  of  our 
union  with  him.  I  have  been,  and  no  doubt  in  the 
future  shall  be,  so  insistent  on  this,  the  basal  fact  of 
our  religion,  that  I  am  not  now  going  to  dwell  on 
the  fact  itself,  but  rather  on  some  deductions  from 
it.  It  is  a  fact  so  rich  and  significant  in  practical 
application,  that  we  can  make  no  pretentions  to  ex¬ 
haust  its  meaning,  but  can  only  lightly  touch  upon 
the  borders  of  it. 

Let  us  think,  then,  in  the  first  place,  of  our  spirit¬ 
ual  life  as  a  dependent  and  derived  life.  Just  as 
the  stream  depends  every  moment  of  its  existence 
upon  the  fountain,  and  will  dry  up  if  the  fountain 
ceases  to  send  forth  the  waters  which  are  its  life, 
so  we  depend  on  Christ,  who  is  the  inexhaustible 
source  of  our  spirit’s  energy.  Or,  to  return  to  our 
Lord’s  own  symbol,  the  twigs  and  leaves  and  flow¬ 
ers  of  the  vine  are  each  moment  living  and  growing 
by  virtue  of  the  life-giving  sap  that  flows  forth  to 
them  from  the  central  trunk.  Spiritual  health, 


I  AM  THE  VINE  1 95 

spiritual  strength,  spiritual  existence  are  impossi¬ 
ble  apart  from  Christ. 

If  at  any  moment  the  vital  connection  between 
the  vine  and  the  branch  is  interrupted  the  effect  on 
the  branch  is  disastrous.  The  energy  is  reduced 
or  abolished,  and  it  at  once  tends  toward  death. 
Nothing  can  save  it  except  the  removal  of  the  ob¬ 
struction  and  the  restitution  of  the  circulation. 
That  which  impedes  or  entirely  interrupts  the  vital 
connection  between  our  spirits  and  the  source  of 
our  spirit’s  life,  is  sin.  Hence  the  importance  of 
sin  and  inevitability  of  the  stress  laid  upon  it  in 
Christian  teaching.  It  is  possible  to  think  of 
sin  lightly,  and  to  speak  of  it  as  of  small  conse¬ 
quence,  only  if  we  neglect  its  necessary  effect  in  in¬ 
terrupting  the  action  of  the  spiritual  life  by  sever¬ 
ing  it  from  its  source.  And  just  because  sin  has 
this  importance  it  is  necessary  in  our  thought  of  it 
to  see  where  its  evil  lies,  and  lay  our  emphasis  in 
the  right  place. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  in  our  thought  of  sin 
we  dwell  too  much  upon  it  as  it  is  a  violation  of  law. 
Our  thought  naturally  tends  to  legalism,  and  to  rest 
in  the  superficial  fact  of  the  breaking  of  law  as  a 
sufficient  account  of  sin  and  of  God’s  attitude  to¬ 
ward  it.  The  Supreme  Law-giver,  we  call  God; 
thereby,  through  a  poor  analogy,  getting  one  of  the 
most  imperfect  conceptions  of  God  we  could  gain. 


196  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

There  will  always  remain  in  our  conception  of  law 
an  element  of  arbitrariness,  the  feeling  that  the  law 
might  have  been  otherwise,  and  if  so,  the  guilt  of 
breaking  the  law  will  seem  less.  But  the  laws  of 
God  are  the  self-expression  of  God  and  could  not 
be  otherwise ;  and  that  puts  the  violation  of  the  law 
or  sin  on  some  deeper  basis  than  just  the  violation  of 
an  arbitrary  enactment.  We  ask,  why  is  the  violation 
of  a  divine  law  so  disastrous?  Because  it  exposes 
us  to  penalty  ?  That  is  one  side  of  it,  certainly :  but 
a  limited  side,  unless  you  attach  some  extended 
meaning  to  the  word  penalty.  Because  it  is  a 
breach  of  sympathy  showing  that  the  sinner  is  no 
longer  in  sympathy  with  the  thought  of  God?  Yes, 
that  is  included,  and  is  disastrous.  But  there  is  a  sig¬ 
nificance  of  sin  deeper  than  that.  The  most  complete 
account  of  it  is  that  it  is  a  hindrance  to  the  opera¬ 
tion  of  the  Divine  Life.  The  life  that  flows  forth 
from  our  Lord  and  is  imparted  to  us  that  we  may 
live  in  him  and  by  him,  is  obstructed  in  its  action 
by  the  operation  of  sin.  Sin  is  an  interruption  of 
the  life  of  union.  The  water  is  dammed  back  in 
the  fountain ;  the  sao  is  driven  back  to  the  roots. 

The  branch  is  cut  off  and  withered — that  is  what 
we  call  mortal  sin.  What  a  terrible  thing  it  is  to 
look  at — that  withered  branch!  It  had  once  been 
in  the  vine,  a  part  of  the  vine’s  life.  It  had  had 
the  power  of  growth  and  fruitfulness.  That  soul 


I  AM  THE  VINE 


197 


was  once  a  Christian  soul,  was  once  full  of  the  life 
of  grace,  once  fruitful  in  good  works.  And  see  it 
now !  How  dead  and  cold  it  is !  And  yet  we  may 
not  recognize  the  state  of  the  man  for  what  it  is, 
and  the  man  himself  may  not  recognize  it.  That  is 
one  of  the  awful  things  about  death,  that  the  dead 
thing  has  ceased  to  feel.  The  dead  soul  has  ceased 
to  feel  any  reproach  of  the  conscience,  any  need  of 
God.  It  has  become  indifferent  to  all  the  work  of 
(Christ  for  it,  impatient  of  all  the  appeals  of  relig¬ 
ion.  Very  likely  it  is  filled  with  intellectual  con¬ 
ceit,  with  a  sense  of  superiority  to  the  Gospel  of 
Jesus.  It  sneers  at  the  virtues  of  the  Christian  life 
as  the  qualities  of  weaklings.  It  looks  back  at  the 
days  when  it  followed  the  religion  of  Jesus  as  days 
of  superstition  from  which  it  is  now  happily  eman¬ 
cipated. 

We  are  not  in  that  state.  We  cannot  be  in  that 
state  so  long  as  we  are,  however  feebly,  attempting 
to  follow  the  guidance  of  the  Spirit  to  a  better  life. 
But  there  is  in  the  experience  of  those  who  are,  on 
the  whole,  making  some  effort  to  live  Christianly, 
an  approach  to  this  state  of  mortal  sin — a  drift  to¬ 
ward  it.  This  is  the  state  of  habitual  venial  sin. 
If  we  are  accustomed  to  search  our  conscience  with 
any  thoroughness,  we  have  found  from  time  to 
time  in  our  lives  sins  that  we  tolerate ;  sins  that  we 
are  not  hating.  Now  it  is  one  thing,  through  weak- 


19s  THE  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

ness  or  surprise,  or  through  strong  temptation,  to 
fall  into  sin — sin  that  on  the  whole  we  did  not  mean 
to  commit,  and  quite  another  thing  to  discover  in 
ourselves  sins  that  we  like  and  excuse.  There  may¬ 
be  some  degree  of  repentance  for  them,  there  may 
be  spasmodic  struggles  against  them;  but  they  re¬ 
main,  and  on  the  whole  they  remain,  because  we 
want  them  to  remain.  They  are  usually  not  what 
we  would  call  dark  sins;  nor  sins  by  which  we 
make  obvious  gain.  There  are  other  sins  that  give 
us  a  certain  pleasure ;  sins  that  are  the  expression 
of  some  innate  weakness  of  character.  There  are 
people,  for  instance,  whose  sense  of  truth  is  very 
defective;  who  are  unable,  it  would  seem,  to  ap¬ 
preciate  the  subtle  graduations  between  truth  and 
untruth.  They  are  unable  to  narrate  events  accur¬ 
ately  or  to  repeat  statements  exactly.  The  state¬ 
ment  that  they  repeat  is  altered  by  a  difference  of 
shading,  of  emphasis,  of  tone,  till  the  impression  it 
conveys  is  utterly  falsified  from  the  original.  There 
are  those  whose  vividness  of  imagination,  whose 
sense  of  the  dramatic,  over-rides  their  sense  of  ac¬ 
curacy.  To  them  it  is  more  important  that  what 
they  tell  should  be  effective  than  that  it  should  be 
true.  They  see  in  an  event  the  possibility  of  a 
good  story — and  why  should  a  good  story  be  spoiled 
for  so  small  a  thing  as  exactitude  of  detail?  They 
are  feebly  artistic  natures  that  tend  to  embellish 


I  AM  THE  VINE 


399 


what  passes  through  their  hands.  Then  there  is 
the  genus  of  irresponsible  talkers,  mere  chatterers, 
afflicted  with  an  unrestrainable  flow  of  words,  who, 
for  the  most  part,  one  fancies,  do  not  at  all  know 
what  they  say :  who  attach  no  sense  of  responsibility 
to  the  gift  of  speech.  They  abound  in  gossip,  and 
are  likely  to  have  a  malicious  twist  in  their  nature 
that  gives  their  gossip  a  sting.  They  are  afflicted 
with  an  idle  curiosity,  and  have  a  capacity  for  in¬ 
teresting  themselves  in  the  petty.  There  are  those 
whose  imaginations  are  diseased  and  who  delight 
in  the  vulgar  or  the  salacious,  whose  anecdotes 
touch  the  limits  of  the  decent.  Or,  in  sins  of  an¬ 
other  order,  think  of  those  who  are  of  a  morbid  or 
morose  temperament ;  who  are  suspicious  of  others’ 
meaning,  and  are  in  constant  expectation  of  being 
slighted  or  ignored  or  neglected;  who  watch  one’s 
face  or  gesture  or  emphasis  to  extort  from  them 
food  of  offense. 

I  am  not  saying  that  these  and  the  like  are  great 
sins.  My  point  is  that  they  are  not.  What  I  am 
insisting  on  is  that  they  are  the  sort  of  sins  that 
human  beings  treat  with  indulgence,  if  not  affection, 
and  make  no  adequate  effort  to  overcome.  They 
necessarily  come  before  them  again  and  again  in 
their  self-exauiination,  unless  they  are  spiritually 
blind ;  and  the  frequency  of  their  occurrence  causes 
them  no  more  than  a  passing  twinge  of  conscience. 


200 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


and  leads  to  no  persistent  effort  to  change.  But 
they  are  there,  gnawing  at  the  spiritual  vitals,  cor¬ 
roding  the  spiritual  springs  of  life.  The  soul  abides 
in  a  permanent  state  of  tolerated  venial  sin  which 
must  be  ultimately  destructive  of  spiritual  life.  It 
may  be  a  very  small  worm  that  is  eating  at  the  heart 
of  the  branch,  but  if  it  eats  long  enough  the  branch 
is  cut  through  and  falls  to  the  ground — it  no  longer 
abides  in  the  union  of  the  vine. 

One  of  the  commonest  symptoms  of  the  presence 
of  tolerated  venial  sin  is  spiritual  sloth.  It  is  spir¬ 
itual  sloth,  indeed,  born  of  the  sin  that  prevents  us 
from  dealing  with.  And  the  sloth  extends  itself 
to  other  fields  of  spiritual  activity.  The  soul  be¬ 
comes  negligent  in  prayer,  in  preparation  for  its 
sacraments,  and  thus  being  in  an  unresponsive  state 
gets  no  fruit  of  them.  Duties  of  certain  kinds  that 
are  not  in  themselves  agreeable  to  the  person  are 
left  undone.  Thus  issues  what  one  might  perhaps 
call  a  partial  paralysis  of  the  spiritual  nature.  Even 
in  health,  physiologists  tell  us,  there  are  spots  on 
our  bodies  where  we  do  not  feel  at  all  or  feel  less 
intensely ;  so  there  seem  to  be  in  certain  souls  dead 
spots.  There  sin  does  not  produce  the  reaction  of 
conscience,  or  only  a  slight  reaction.  The  total  ef¬ 
fect  of  all  this  is  to  reduce  the  spiritual  vitality.  The 
circulation  of  the  life  of  the  branch  is  impeded.  We 
fall  into  a  low  spiritual  condition.  You  have  no- 


I  AM  THE  VINE 


201 


ticed  in  a  shrub,  perhaps,  a  branch  where  the  leaves 
are  undergrown  and  the  blossoms  puny :  you  know 
that  there  will  be  no  fruit  there.  You  have  noticed 
in  your  life,  perhaps,  a  lack  of  fruit  in  certain  places : 
well,  it  were  well  to  look  into  the  matter  to  see 
where  the  trouble  lies  and  to  find  why  the  life  of 
the  vine  is  impeded  in  its  circulation  in  you. 

We  are  all  of  us  limited  in  our  development — 
otherwise  we  should  be  saints  already  instead  of 
aspiring  to  sanctity.  We  have  failed  of  any  com¬ 
plete  answer  to  the  command,  “be  ye  therefore  per¬ 
fect.”  Our  obligation  is  to  be  constantly  seeking  the 
meaning  of  our  limitation  and  discovering  remedies 
of  it ;  certainly  not  to  rest  in  the  fact  that  we  are  al¬ 
ready  active.  The  self-satisfaction  that  is  liable 
to  accompany  the  doing  of  many  things  is  one  of 
the  dangers  that  are  ever  present  to  the  active.  It 
leads  us  to  confuse  quantity  of  work  with  quality. 
So  long  as  we  are  occupied  we  seem  to  be  making 
progress.  But  progress  in  what?  Activity  is  not 
the  synonym  of  spirituality.  We  need  to  scan  the  * 
nature  and  motive  of  our  activity  if  we  will  know 
its  quality,  its  bearing,  that  is  to  say,  on  our  own 
spiritual  development — whether  our  activity  is  of 
such  a  kind  as  to  release  the  spiritual  energy  that  is 
communicated  to  us,  making  our  work  a  supernat¬ 
ural  operation  of  grace,  or  whether  it  is  but  a  natu¬ 
ral  activity,  a  response  to  taste  or  social  pressure. 


202 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


It  is  only  in  the  former  case  that  it  is  of  a  nature  to 
remove  or  push  further  back  the  limitations  which 
hinder  our  development,  and  make  it  possible  for 
us  to  go  on  nearer  to  perfection. 

For  we  are  supposed  to  have  no  limitations.  The 
Gospel  assumes  the  possibility  of  all  men  attaining 
its  ideal.  That,  we  say  to  ourselves,  is  an  impos¬ 
sible  ideal.  But  that  is  just  what  it  is  not.  Cer¬ 
tainly,  we  have  not  fulfilled  it :  but  it  must  remain 
our  ideal,  or  our  spiritual  endeavor  will  come  to  a 
stop.  '  Our  ideal  is  the  ideal  of  the  perfect  man ; 
that  we  are  to  grow  up  to  when  Christ  Jesus  is 
formed  in  us,  and  the  space  by  which  we  at  pres¬ 
ent  fall  short  of  it,  is  the  measure  of  the  distance 
which  still  separates  us  from  full  conformity  with 
our  Lord.  When  that  space  is  traversed  we  shall 
be  at  the  end  of  our  course :  but  now  we  must  push 
forward  on  our  pilgrimage,  eager  for  perfection. 
Here  as  elsewhere,  the  true  measure  of  life  is  its  de¬ 
sire  and  not  its  accomplishment.  In  accomplish¬ 
ment  we  may  be  bettered  by  circumstance  and  hin¬ 
dered  by  the  uncontrollable  accidents  of  life:  we 
may  mistake  and  blunder  and  fail,  so  it  seems,  of 
any  accomplishment  at  all ;  but  we  can  hardly  be 
mistaken  about  our  desires;  and  they  may  burn  in¬ 
tensely  even  when  the  brain  and  hand  show  them¬ 
selves  incompetent  to  carry  them  to  effect.  Some¬ 
times,  indeed,  the  love  of  our  Lord  which  is  in  our 


I  AM  THE  VINE 


203 


heart  finds  it  difficult  to  discover  any  means  of  ex¬ 
pression  manward,  and  on  that  very  account  ma) 
reach  more  intense  expression  Godward.  In  such 
a  case  we  have  a  life  which  is  called  of  God  to  in¬ 
terior  activities  of  love,  of  penance,  of  intercession ; 
of  which  the  outward  effects,  though  difficult  to  es¬ 
timate,  are  none  the  less  of  a  high  order.  There 
is  no  spiritual  activity  that  is  resultless : 

“There  is  no  drop  but  serves  the  slowly  lifting  tide: 

No  dew  but  has  an  errand  to  some  flower; 

No  smallest  star  but  sheds  some  helpful  ray.” 

The  vine  and  the  branches  make  but  one  body; 
we  are  not  only  “members  of  Christ,”  but  ‘‘mem* 
■bers  one  of  another.”  While  the  space  that  this 
truth  has  filled  in  the  thought  of  recent  years  has 
made  it  perfectly  familiar  to  us,  a  mere  common¬ 
place  of  our  speaking,  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  it 
has  become  fundamental  to  our  action — it  has  had 
small  practical  effect  hitherto.  It  moves  us  specu¬ 
latively  and  emotionally.  It  underlies,  for  instance, 
the  vast  amount  of  talk  that  there  has  been  on  the 
subject  of  peace,  international  and  other.  If  we 
only  attended  meetings  or  read  speeches  we  should 
think  that  the  world  was  moving  rapidly  toward  a 
state  in  which  war  would  be  impossible.  But  it  is 
plain  that  we  have  only  theoretic  interest  in  peace, 
an  interest  in  peace  in  matters  where  we  are  not 


204 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


personally  concerned.  But  let  questions  arise  which 
touch  us,  and  our  dreams  of  peace  go  for  nothing, 
and  we  make  us  ready  for  battle.  We  fall  back 
into  the  old  dialect  and  talk  about  national  honor, 
and  the  impossibility  of  arbitration  in  the  specific 
case.  The  same  atmosphere  of  unreality  surrounds 
our  professions  of  brotherhood  in  our  social  deal¬ 
ings.  There  are  large  philanthropic  professions:  I 
doubt  if  there  has  ever  been  a  time  of  more  intense 
hostility  between  different  sections  of  society.  The 
Socialist  movement  which  talks  beautifully  of 
brotherhood,  yet  expects  to  get  its  results  through 
class  struggle,  by  setting  brother  against  brother 
in  the  bitterest  of  all  wars.  Class  antagonism  is 
capitalized  to  an  enormous  extent  in  the  operations 
of  labor  and  capital.  A  tremendous  amount  of  our 
legislature  is  directed  to  give  some  financial  ad¬ 
vantage  to  this  or  that  class.  In  the  active  busi¬ 
ness  of  life  the  fact  that  all  men  are  brothers  would 
seem  to  be  quite  the  last  thing  thought  of.  And 
in  our  more  intimate  social  relations  is  not  the  same 
thing  observable?  We  are  all  brothers  in  our  mo¬ 
ments  of  expansion,  when  we  dwell  unctiously  on 
the  platitudes  of  speculation :  but  it  does  still  make 
a  vast  difference  to  us  how  our  brothers  dress  and 
cat  and  lodge.  We  do  not  feel  the  bond  of  brother¬ 
hood  tightening  between  us  and  the  man  across  the 
hotel  table  who  has  weird  methods  of  managing  his 


I  AM  THE  VINE 


205 


food-supply.  I  have  known  quite  eminent  Chris¬ 
tians  make  complaint  of  the  odor  of  the  tenement 
house  children  in  the  next  pew.  We  are  not  above 
being  repelled  by  peculiarities  of  dress. 

The  trouble  would  seem  to  be  that  in  our  theoriz¬ 
ing  we  have  left  out  an  essential  element  of  the 
problem.  We  have  arrived  at  a  purely  human 
notion  of  brotherhood  which  breaks  down  under 
the  strain  of  practical  application.  We  have  not 
added  to  it  the  complementary  term  in  Christ , 
which  will  alone  give  our  nation  energy  and  make  it 
function.  Men  are  rather  fond  of  borrowing  truths 
from  the  gospel  and  then,  evacuating  them  of  their 
supernatural  character,  attempting  to  make  them 
work  as  merely  human  truths.  Belief  in  brother¬ 
hood,  which  is  the  chief  asset  of  humanitarianism, 
will  not 'work  except  as  a  part  of  a  supernatural  sys¬ 
tem.  We  arrive  at  brotherhood  in  the  full  sense  by 
being  taken  into  Christ,  and  apart  from  him  we  can 
do  nothing  in  this  matter.  I  anticipate  the  objection: 
it  is  true  that  we  cannot  be  said  to  be  doing  very 
much  with  it  in  any  case.  But  that  is  because  we 
have  not  yet  got  to  much  social  understanding  of 
what  being  a  Christian  means.  Most  men  are  still 
in  the  stage  of  thinking  it  means  being  good  in 
some  personal  and  private  sense,  in  some  restricted 
sphere  of  activity.  It  seems  to  be  possible  through 
this  artificial  and  non-natural  restriction  of  the 


206 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


sphere  of  the  application  of  Christian  principle,  for 
a  man  to  be  good,  a  good  member  of  the  church, 
etc., while  he  remains  the  director  of  the  company 
or  the  head  of  the  business  which  is  conducted  on 
lines  of  oppression,  or  indulges  in  activities  which 
are  only  moral  if  moral  means  legal ;  which  does  not 
ask,  is  it  right,  is  it  just,  but  only  can  it  be  done 
within  the  law.  A  Christian  society,  I  suppose, 
we  have  never  seen,  nor  would  it  appear  to  be  with¬ 
in  the  range  of  telescopes  of  the  highest  power  as 
yet  invented.  Individual  Christianity  we  have 
seen :  social  Christianity — no.  And  that  because 
we  have  not  yet  understood  the  meaning  of  “in 
Christ”  as  applied  to  all  members  of  the  Christian 
family. 

We  speak  a  Christian  language  without  attribut¬ 
ing  a  Christian  meaning  to  our  words.  It  is  inter¬ 
esting  (and  disheartening)  to  trace  this  process  of 
emasculation  of  Christian  thought.  We  are  very 
tolerant  to-day :  and  it  is  difficult  to  take  up  a  mod¬ 
ern  book  dealing  with  religious  or  social  questions 
which  has  not  something  to  say  of  the  intolerance 
of  the  Christian  Church ;  at  least  in  the  past.  The 
narrowing  effects  of  religion  we  are  constantly 
warned  against.  But  is  tolerance,  which  I  take  to 
be  a  charitable  bearing  with  those  who  differ  from 
us,  without  losing  sight  of  the  fact  and  importance 
of  the  difference,  really  a  wide-spread  virtue?  I 


I  AM  THE  VINE 


207 


say,  a  true  tolerance  does  not  exist  where  that 
which  separates  us  is  conceived  as  of  no  import¬ 
ance.  If  the  contrary  opinion  or  action  of  another 
is  of  no  importance,  what  we  feel  is  not  tolerance, 
but  indifference.  And  that,  in  fact,  is  what  is  so 
highly  prized  and  so  widely  manifested  to-day. 
Men  are  indifferent  to  truth,  and  therefore  tolerant 
in  this  sense.  Religious  indifference  is  perhaps  the 
most  outstanding  phenomenon  of  the  present  situa¬ 
tion.  People  are  intolerant  of  any  opinion  because 
they  cannot  conceive  that  any  opinion  in  the  matter 
of  religion  can  be  of  importance.  It  makes  no  dif¬ 
ference  what  you  believe,  is  the  foundation  of  the 
modern  creed.  Therefore  men  can  look  back  at 
Middle  Ages,  for  instance,  with  horror  and  con¬ 
tempt.  But  when  you  meet  men  holding  opinions 
to  which  they  really  attribute  importance,  do  you 
find  them  markedly  tolerant?  Let  the  priest  who 
has  a  congregation  made  up  from  the  mercantile 
class  preach  of  brotherhood  in  the  sense  in  which 
Socialists  understand  it,  and  what  will  happen?  I 
know  of  a  priest  who  was  warned  that  if  he  accept¬ 
ed  a  certain  parish  he  would  have  to  keep 
silent  on  the  political  opinions  he  was  known  to 
hold — not  silent  in  the  pulpit,  but  silent  in  the  or¬ 
dinary  relations  of  life.  We  know  that  there  are 
dozens  of  questions  which  will  stir  the  religiously 
tolerant  man  to  intolerance — that  one  of  the  secrets 


2o8 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


of  successful  intercourse  with  our  brothers  is 
knowing  when  to  keep  one’s  mouth  shut.  Human 
beings  are  just  as  intolerant  to-day  everywhere  as 
in  the  Middle  Ages. 

Would  it  not  be  well  for  Christians  to  ask  them¬ 
selves  how  far  they  are  using  the  cloak  of  tolerance 
as  an  excuse  for  their  worldliness?  The  Christian 
community  is  invisible  as  such :  it  is  inextricably 
mingled  with  the  world.  The  line  of  demarkation 
between  the  church  and  the  world  was  once  very 
clear  and  decided.  It  was  easy  to  find  on  which 
side  of  the  line  a  man  stood,  and  I  do  not  believe 
that  we  can  have  any  healthy  church  life  (we  may 
possibly  maintain  a  healthy  individual  life)  till  we 
remark  this  difference.  The  coming  out  of  the 
world  of  the  early  Christians  was  a  mark  of  spirit¬ 
ual  health.  We  avoid  making  any  such  distinction 
because  of  an  utterly  absurd  theory  that  the  world, 
society,  has  been  converted  and  is  now  Christian. 
The  rise  of  this  theory  was  contemporaneous  with 
the  degeneration  of  the  Church.  It  was  when  men 
began  to  talk  of  a  Christian  empire,  Christian  king¬ 
doms,  the  Christian  world,  that  the  outlines  of  the 
Christian  Church  became  blurred,  and  men  thought 
that  they  could  be  Christian  without  separation 
from  the  world.  Those  who  are  Christians  in  any¬ 
thing  more  than  a  nominal  sense  belong  to  the 
Vine,  to  the  Body  of  Christ,  and  the  member  of 


I  AM  THE  VINE 


209 


Christ  cannot  at  the  same  time  be  members  of  the 
harlot  that  the  world  is.  A  Christian  must  be 
known,  not  only  as  one  who  stands  for  something, 
holding  a  private  creed  that  is  tolerated  so  long  as 
he  does  not  press  it,  but  as  one  who  stands  against 
something,  and  stands  so  firmly  that  his  standing 
may  be  expected  to  arouse  opposition.  His  atti¬ 
tude  must  be  one  of  continual  protest. 

It  is  implied  in  the  cleansing  of  the  fruitful 
branch  that  the  process  of  our  conformity  to  Christ 
is  one  that  ceaselessly  goes  on  when  the  life  is  in  a 
a  healthy  state.  The  process  of  our  moral  and 
spiritual  growth  brings  into  evidence  defects  that 
we  had  not  suspected  and  which  need  to  be  rectified 
through  the  closer  application  of  Christian  princi¬ 
ple — spots  where  the  soul  is  tarnished  which  need 
the  cleansing  application  of  a  Saviour’s  blood. 
“Wash  me  thoroughly” — wash  me  more  and  more. 
The  true  stress  of  the  Christian  life  is  upon  this  pro¬ 
gressive  cleansing  which  fits  us  to  receive  and  trans¬ 
mit  more  of  Christ.  I  fancy  that  we  do  not  yet 
dream  of  the  possibilities  of  our  spiritual  nature, 
here  in  this  world,  if  we  were  to  co-operate  with 
God  in  bringing  it  to  the  development  it  is  capable 
of.  And  yet  we  have  had  before  our  eyes  through¬ 
out  the  history  of  the  church  object  lessons  of  the 
possibilities  of  spiritual  action  where  the  whole  life 
is  spiritualized  by  its  union  with  our  Lord.  But 

(15) 


“2  10 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


we  insist  upon  regarding  the  results  of  such  spirit¬ 
ual  action  with  suspicion,  or  upon  brushing  them 
aside  as  manifestly  false.  Being  Christians,  we 
still  include  among  the  axioms  that  we  regard  as 
self-evident,  the  axiom  of  materialistc  unbelief, 
“miracles  do  not  happen,” — an  axiom  which  we 
curiously  suspend  in  its  application  when  we  are 
dealing  with  the  miracles  of  the  Bible.  Just  what 
miracles  are,  is,  of  course,  largely  a  matter  of  defin¬ 
ition,  which  I  do  not  pause  to  discuss.  The  point 
I  wish  to  emphasise  is  that  the  history  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  offers  us  a  continuous  series  of  phenomena 
— ecstacy,  vision,  prophecy,  healings,  and  such  deal¬ 
ing  with  the  natural  world  as  we  call  miraculous — 
which  must  either  be  rejected,  as  we  ordinarily  do 
reject  them,  as  unthinkable  upon  our  assumed 
premises,  or  accepted  as  the  evidence  of  a  power¬ 
ful  spiritual  activity  exerted  through  the  lives  of 
certain  men  and  women.  We  accept  the  presence 
and  action  of  this  spiritual  power  in  persons  whose 
lives  are  recorded  in  Holy  Scripture — and  most  of 
us  stop  there,  with  the  question  begging  assertion 
that  such  action  is  ‘‘miraculous.”  But  why  stop 
there?  The  phenomena  do  not  stop  there,  but  are 
continuous  in  Christian  history.  They  are  phen¬ 
omena  that  are  constantly  attendant  upon  the  life 
of  sanctity.  I  do  not  mean  that  every  alleged  mi¬ 
racle  in  the  “lives  of  the  Saints”  is  to  be  accepted 


I  AM  THE  VINE 


2  11 


without  question ;  but  I  do  mean  that  there  is  quite 
sufficient  evidence  in  the  lives  of  the  saints  of  the 
operation  of  a  power  which  we  have,  speaking 
broadly,  declined  carefully  to  consider  and  to  ap¬ 
preciate  which  does  not  differ,  so  far  as  one  can  see, 
from  the  power  exercised  by  St.  Peter,  St.  Paul  or 
St.  John,  which  we  admit.  To  me,  there  seems 
every  reason  to  believe  that  the  spiritual  nature  of 
man,  purified  and  intensified  by  its  union  with  the 
life  of  God  in  Christ,  is  constanly  capable  of  deal¬ 
ing  with  the  world  in  the  way  of  a  force ,  and  pro¬ 
ducing  effects  which  are  as  real  as  those  produced 
by  material  forces.  When  we  meet  with  such 
phenomena  in  the  lives  of  the  saints  there  is  need, 
no  doubt,  to  criticise  and  control  them :  but  it  cannot 
be  admitted  that  they  are  a  priori  impossible,  after 
the  manner  of  the  old  scepticism,  or  that  they  are  to 
be  explained  of  a  morbid  mind,  as  it  is  at  present 
fashionable  to  do.  We  admit  unhesitatingly  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  personality :  we  must  widen  our  concep¬ 
tion  to  include  spiritual  personality — personality 
which  has  become,  through  the  life  of  union,  the 
organ  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  not  through  superseding 
or  obliteration  of  our  powers,  but  by  the  heightening 
and  intensifying  of  them.  Through  such  use  of  the 
human  by  the  divine  a  new  order  of  causation  en¬ 
ters  the  world  and  the  supernatural  is  naturalized. 

We  may  state  one  result  of  our  incorporation 


2  1  2 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


in  the  Vine  and  of  your  purging  that  we  may  bring 
forth  fruit,  as  an  increase  of  privileges.  Those 
who  have  entered  upon  the  exercise  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  life  as  a  life  of  union  with  their  Saviour,  find 
the  fulfillment  of  his  promises  a  constant  fact  of 
their  experience — find  this,  because  they  have  learn¬ 
ed  to  accept  and  act  upon  his  promises  as  they 
would  upon  the  promises  of  any  friend  in  whom 
they  trusted.  Our  Lord’s  promises  are  intended 
to  be  the  support  and  guidance  of  the  daily  life  of 
the  Christian;  but  they  are  so  splendid  and  far- 
reaching  that  we  are  afraid  of  them  and  do  not 
trust  ourselves  to  them.  I  am  sure  that  it  cannot 
be  said  that  the  Christian  community  bases  its  life 
squarely  upon  them :  Rather, it  attempts  to  fall  back 
upon  them  spasmodically  and  in  cases  of  difficulty. 
But  they  are  not  meant  to  be  places  of  refuge  amid 
the  crowded  streets  of  life,  but  are  the  very  street 
itself.  “Ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will  and  it  shall  be 
done  unto  you.”  is  a  very  sweeping  promise,  and  is 
to  be  taken  only  with  such  limitations  as  are  in¬ 
volved  in  the  application  of  any  principle  to  life. 
The  things  that  will  be  impossible  to  us  will  be 
those  that  are  rendered  so  by  the  imperfection  of 
our  union  with  Christ.  Union,  I  must  again  insist, 
is  the  foundation  of  our  Lord’s  action  in  us,  and  is 
the  indispensable  preliminary  to  his  action.  How 
far  we  have  become  one  with  him  is  the  measure  of 


I  AM  THE  VINE 


213 

how  far  he  can  act  in  us.  I  do  not  mean  that  a 
man  living  in  a  state  of  sin  and  alienation  from  the 
life  of  God  may  not  call  upon  God,  and,  repudiat¬ 
ing  his  sin,  hope  for  an  answer  to  his  cry ;  but  that 
a  man  living  in  unrepudiated  sin  has  no  basis  of 
hope.  He  must  first  of  all  repent  and  come  to  God. 
I  do  not  mean  that  those  whose  union  with  our 
Lord  is  but  partial  and  imperfect  owing  to  the 
branch  not  yet  having  been  thoroughly  purged,  are 
not  heard  of  God ;  but  that  in  their  case  the  purg¬ 
ing  is  the  pressing  matter,  and  that  they  must  care 
for  that  before  there  is  a  possibility  of  gaining 
much  of  the  “other  things” — “seek  ye  first  the  king¬ 
dom  of  God  and  his  righteousness  and  all  these 
things  shall  be  added  unto  you.”  There  is,  no 
doubt,  a  certain  necessary  order  in  the  distribution 
of  the  divine  gifts. 

One  feels  sure  that  prayers  so  often  fail  because 
they  are  the  occasional  resort  to  God  for  gifts  on 
the  part  of  those  who  have  never  cared  enough 
about  God  to  maintain  any  intimacy  of  life  with 
him :  who  resort  to  him  in  emergencies,  as  they 
might  to  a  stranger  or  neglected  friend.  Even 
such  prayers  should  no  doubt  be  made;  and  we 
may  expect  much  from  the  All-Father  who  “giveth 
to  all  men  liberally,”  and  “maketh  his  sun  to  rise 
on  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  his  rain 
upon  the  just  and  the  unjust,”  but  they  lack  the 


214 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


assured  basis  of  Christian  promise.  The  prayers 
that  are  made  by  Christians  on  the  basis  of  our 
Lord’s  promises  are  of  another  order.  They,  too, 
may  often  seem  unanswered ;  but  the  reason  of  this 
seeming  lack  of  answer  must  be  sought  elsewhere. 
I  think  that  we  may  be  sure  of  this,  if  we  are  liv¬ 
ing  lives  close  to  our  Lord,  that  the  prayers  that  are 
not  answered  are  the  prayers  which  we  should  not 
want  answered,  if  we  could  see  the  whole  fact. 

The  failures  are  failures  that  we  shall  rejoice 

in  when  we  come  to  see  the  whole  fact 

of  life.  There  is  no  one  with  any  deep 

experience  of  prayer  who  cannot  look  back 
and  see  that  not  once  or  twice,  the  love  of 
God  was  manifest  in  the  denial  rather  than  in  the 
granting  our  requests.  God  acted  upon  what  was 
best  for  our  lives  at  the  time,  not  upon  our 
imperfect  vision  of  the  best.  There  is  a 
passage  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  that 
seems  to  everybody  the  principle  of  God’s 
dealing  with  us  in  this  matter.  Our  Lord 
is  there  teaching  about  prayer  and  lays  down  as 
the  basis  of  our  confidence  this  promise :  “Every¬ 
one  that  asketh  receiveth ;  and  he  that  seeketh 
findeth ;  and  to  him  that  knocketh  it  shall  be  opened”. 
He  develops,  as  the  ground  of  this  promise,  the 
Fatherhood  of  God ;  and  then  goes  on  to  illustrate 
from  the  phenomena  of  human  fatherhood.  “What 


I  AM  THE  VINE 


2I5 

man  is  there  of  you,  whom  if  his  son  ask  bread  will 
he  give  him  a  stone?  Or  if  he  ask  a  fish  will  he 
give  him  a  serpent?  If  ye  then,  being  evil,  know 
how  to  give  good  gifts  to  your  children,  how  much 
more  will  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  give  good 
things  to  them  that  ask  him?”  And  surely  if  the 
son  ask  a  stone  or  serpent,  thinking  it,  in  his  ignor¬ 
ance,  bread  or  fish,  the  human  father  will  decline 
the  mistaken  request.  He  would  not  give  evil  gifts  or 
hurtful  because  of  the  son’s  ignorance.  And  no  more 
shall  our  Father  which  is  heaven.  He  will  re¬ 
gard  the  nature  of  our  asking  and  the  need  of  our 
life.  He  will  be  content  in  his  giving  to  bear  the 
reproaches  of  our  ignorance,  our  fretful  complaint 
that  he  is  not  faithful,  the  irritation  of  our  disap¬ 
pointment.  God  is  content  to  be  misunderstood, 
and  always  will  be  misunderstood  except  by  those 
who  have  the  vision  of  faith,  by  those  who  have 
lived  with  God  and  trusted  him  and  have  found 
him  faithful — as  faithful  in  what  he  refused  as  in 
what  he  gave.  They  have  learned  to  make  it  their 
first  and  abiding  prayer  that  they  may  desire  noth¬ 
ing  but  that  which  is  according  to  his  will,  and 
that  his  will  and  his  wisdom  may  ever  check  and 
override  their  own  ignorance  and  limited  vision. 
Approaching  God  with  this  mind  they  approach 
him  in  the  strength  of  his  promise :  “what  things 
soever  ye  desire,  when  ye  pray,  believe  that  ye  re- 


*l6  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

ceive  them,  and  ye  shall  receive  them.”  “Ye  shall 
receive  them,”  for  it  is  impossible  for  him  who 
lives  in  union  with  God,  to  desire  anything  other 
than  the  will  of  God.  The  ultimate  prayer  of  all 
Christians,  conditioning  any  other  prayer,  is  this: 
'‘Thy  will  be  done.” 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD. 


Let  us  listen  to  the  words  of  our  Lord  — 

I  Am  the  Light  of  the  World. 

Let  us  picture  — 

LIND  Bartimaeus,  sitting  by  the  way-side, 
ITi  begging.  Our  Lord,  passing  out  of  Jeri¬ 
cho,  with  his  disciples,  is  accompanied  by 
a  curious  crowd,  inspired  by  the  hope,  no  doubt,  of 
seeing  some  new  miracles  done  by  him.  But 
though  this  hope  was  in  their  mind  they  over¬ 
looked  the  opportunity  that  the  blind  beggar  was  to 
our  Lord.  He  would  seem  to  have  been  a  fami¬ 
liar  figure,  and  suggested  nothing  to  them.  Yet 
here  was  a  man  in  whose  soul  a  great  need  had 
given  birth  to  a  great  faith.  Many  had  told  him 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  and  his  wonderful  works; 
and  it  was  in  his  soul  that  if  he  could  only  get  to 


a  l  8  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

speak  with  him,  he,  too,  might  experience  his 
power.  Hence  the  tumult  of  the  passing  crowd, 
and  the  information  flung  to  him,  that  Jesus  was 
going  by,  led  him  to  cry  out  with  a  cry  that  would 
not  be  stilled  by  the  protests  of  the  multitude,  but 
gained  in  intensity  as  he  realized  that  his  one  hope 
of  healing  lay  in  attracting  the  attention  of  the 
passing  Teacher  and  Prophet — “ Jesus,  thou  Son 
of  David,  have  mercy  on  me.”  Imagine  the  ter¬ 
ror  of  his  soul  least  the  sound  of  voices  growing 
faint  and  of  footsteps  dying  in  the  distance  should 
tell  him  that  his  cry  had  been  in  vain,  and  then 
— how  natural  is  that  touch — the  voices  change; 
they  are  no  longer  protests  against  his  crying,  but 
words  of  encougagement :  “Be  of  good  com¬ 
fort,  rise :  he  calleth  thee.”  And  then  the  voice  of 
Jesus,  asking  his  need,  and  the  words  that  bring 
healings : — “Go  thy  way ;  thy  faith  hath  made  thee 
whole.”  So  the  light  becomes  the  symbol  of  another 
Light,  we  may  be  sure,  that  was  to  fill  his  soul  till 
life  ended — and  beyond. 

Consider ,  first  — 

The  poverty  of  humanity  without  Christ.  We 
make  a  brave  show  of  our  skill,  our  learning,  our 
enlightenment;  but  without  Christ  it  is  but  the 
skill  of  ants  and  of  apes,  a  curious  thing  but  issue¬ 
less,  destined  to  perish  with  a  perishing  world.  We 


1  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD  219 

-sit  by  the  way-side  of  life,  begging — begging  for 
some  knowledge  of  our  destiny,  begging  for  some 
ray  of  light  to  pierce  the  clouds  that  close  about 
the  sun’s  setting.  And  our  sciences  and  our  philo¬ 
sophies  have  nothing  to  say  to  our  pleading,  if  not 
that  it  is  the  foolish  pleading  of  a  child.  They  charge 
us  that  we  should  hold  our  peace.  But  humanity 
cannot  and  will  not  do  that.  It  continues  to  cry  in 
the  hope  that  its  voice  may  reach  some  ear  more  sym¬ 
pathetic,  will  kindle  the  pity  of  some  Unknown 
who  will  be  touched  by  its  extreme  need,  and  pause 
and  call  it  to  come  to  him.  To  me  there  is  noth¬ 
ing  so  pathetic  as  the  ceaseless  struggles  of  human- 
itv  to  solve  the  riddle  of  its  life,  and  its  refusal  to 
be  satisfied  with  the  answers  that  its  teachers  bring 
it  from  generation  to  generation.  The  history  of 
human  thought  shows  that  there  is  an  instinct  in 
man  that  is  stronger  than  all  his  reasoning,  that 
declines  the  conclusions  that  seem  to  be  forced  up¬ 
on  it  by  that  reasoning,  and  insists  on  turning 
hopefully  to  the  ever-new  passers  on  life’s  path¬ 
way,  and  crying  out  its  needs  to  them  and  begging 
them  to  stop  and  listen.  Have  mercy  on 
me,  it  has  cried  continually ;  and  listened  to 
all  voices  that  promised  any  help.  Those 
who  claimed  a  monopoly  of  the  learning  of 
the  world  might  speak  derisively  of  its  supersti¬ 
tions,  but  humanity  has  always  preferred  its  super- 


2  20 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


stitions  of  a  God  and  a  future  life,  to  the  rational 
certainties  and  ^proofs  of  its  teachers.  It  has  been 
certain  that  at  some  time  a  voice  would  break 
through  its  darkness,  and  say,  “Go  thy  way:  thy 
faith  has  made  thee  whole.” 

Consider ,  second  — 

That  a  day  came  when  the  voice  sounded — the 
voice  so  long  awaited — and  the  darkness  broke  and 
man  could  know ;  could  know  that  he  was  only 
passingly  a  creature  of  this  world,  and  that  he  is 
the  immortal  creature  of  God.  Jesus  came,  and 
walked  along  human  streets,  and  went  out  of  the 
gates  of  cities  where  blind  beggars  sit  and  cry,  and 
listened  to  their  voices  and  spoke  words  of  hope.  ‘T 
am  the  light  of  the  world,”  he  said  to  those  who 
sat  in  darkness;  and  their  eyes  were  opened  and 
they  saw  him.  He,  the  Word  of  God,  swept  the 
gathering  clouds  from  the  sunset  sky,  and  men  saw 
their  sun  go  down  in  serenity  and  peace,  because 
they  now  knew  that  it  would  rise  again.  We  no 
longer  look  out  on  the  world  as  a  world  torn  by 
useless  struggles  and  wet  with  purposeless  blood, 
but  we  see  the  world  illumined  with  a  teaching 
that  is  from  God,  and  we  see  it  through  the  crim¬ 
son  of  a  blood  that  was  shed  to  take  away  its  sin. 
The  ears  of  the  deaf  are  unstopped,  and  they  hear 
words  of  comfort  and  encouragement  and 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD 


22  1 


guidance ;  the  eyes  of  the  blind  are  opened, 
and  they  see  Jesus  of  Nazareth  who  stands 
and  calls  them.  We  are  no  longer  children 
of  the  darkness,  but  of  the  light.  God  has 
commanded  the  light  to  shine  out  of  darkness, 
and  it  hath  shined  in  our  hearts,  to  give  the  light  of 
glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  let 
us  not  forget  the  darkness;  let  us  not  be  as  those 
who  never  having  been  blind,  hear  with  but  faint 
interest  the  affliction  of  the  sightless.  Let  us 
rather  remember,  that  we  have  passed  from  dark¬ 
ness  into  light,  and  that  the  passage  back  is  a  pos¬ 
sible  one.  It  is  yet  possible  that  the  Light  of  the 
World  may  die  out  of  our  world,  and  the  light 
within  us  become  darkness.  “If  therefore  the 
light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how  great  is  that 
darkness.” 

Let  us,  then,  pray  — 

That  we  may  walk  in  the  light  as  the  children  of 
light.  Let  us  pray  that  we  may  be  lightened  more 
and  more  unto  the  perfect  day. 

O  God,  the  Enlightener  of  all  nations,  grant  thy 
people  to  enjoy  perpetual  peace;  and  pour  into 
our  hearts  that  Radiant  Light  which  thou  didst 
shed  into  the  minds  of  the  Wise  Men;  through 
Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord. 

We  beseech  the,  O  Lord,  to  enlighten  they  peo- 


222 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


pie,  and  alway  set  their  hearts  on  fire  with  the 
brightness  of  thy  glory ;  that  they  may  both  unceas¬ 
ingly  acknowledge  their  Saviour,  and  truly  appre¬ 
hend  their  Lord  who  with  thee  and  the  Holy  Ghost, 
liveth  and  reigneth,  one  God,  world  without  end, 

•  •••••• 

Life  apart  from  God  is  unintelligible;  it  is  the 
coming  of  the  Spirit  into  life  that  unlocks  its  se¬ 
crets.  Christ  is  the  known  quantity  which  enter¬ 
ing  among  the  unknown  quantities  of  life  deter¬ 
mines  their  values.  He  has  enriched  life  every¬ 
where  that  he  has  touched  it;  and  far  beyond  the 
values  which  religion  has  obviously  created  ther& 
are  other  values  which  owe  their  existence  to  its 
unnoted  influences.  Yet  the  influence  of  our  Lord 
has  penetrated  life  and  so  entangled  itself  with  the 
influences  which  come  from  other  sources,  that  it 
is  always  possible  to  deny  his  influence  if  we  will  to. 
The  social  evidence  for  the  influence  of  Christian¬ 
ity  is  strangely  like  the  intellectual  evidence  for 
the  beliefs  of  Christianity — there  is  always  a  loop¬ 
hole  of  escape  if  you  do  not  want  to  believe.  The 
evidence  for  faith  never  reaches  the  force  of  a 
demonstration,  otherwise  faith  would  cease.  The 
appeal  of  the  evidence  will  call  forth  response  in 
‘‘men  of  good  will,”  not  in  others.  We  see  this 
when  we  read  those  books  which  are  from  time  to 
time  written  to  show  the  gain  to  human  society 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD 


*2  3 


through  the  Gospel.  Page  after  page  piles  up  illus¬ 
trations  of  the  thesis  from  philosophy,  education, 
legislation,  etc.  It  seems  a  luminous  demonstra¬ 
tion  ;  and  then  we  take  up  some  volume  written 
from  the  opposite  point  of  view  and  watch  the  pro¬ 
cess  whereby  the  force  of  the  evidence  is  chipped 
away.  We  read  of  vast  monuments  whereon  an¬ 
cient  kings  have  recorded  their  exploits  in  inscrip¬ 
tions  which  they  believed  would  be  imperish¬ 
able;  but  ere  many  generations  had  passed  some 
king  of  their  successors  had  effaced  their  name  and 
boldly  written  in  his  own.  It  is  thus  that  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  Christianity  has  been  dealt  with :  the 
records  which  bore  our  Lord’s  name  have  been  de¬ 
faced,  and  the  name  of  some  other  written  in.  Now 
and  again  there  arises  some  man  bold  enough  to 
attempt  to  erase  the  name  of  Christ  from  history 
and  to  deny  that  he  lived  or  founded  the  religion 
that  is  called  after  him.  It  is  not  very  new  or 
very  important:  it  is  an  old  story  that  we  believe 
what  we  want  to  believe  and  see  what  we  want  to 
see.  No  doubt  the  landscape  has  a  different  ap¬ 
pearance  according  as  you  stand  on  your  feet  or  on 
your  head.  The  universe  is  so  big  that  you  can 
assemble  facts  which  will  lend  some  color  of  sup¬ 
port  to  almost  any  theory.  You  can  “prove”  that 
the  earth  goes  round  the  sun  or  the  sun  goes  round 


224 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


the  earth  by  selecting  some  facts  and  excluding 
others. 

We  look  out  upon  the  world  from  the  point  of 
view  of  those  who  have  accepted  Christianity,  and 
our  impression  of  the  human  landscape  is  there¬ 
fore  different  from  that  gathered  by  those  who  start 
with  the  rejection  of  Christ  and  supernatural  relig¬ 
ion.  Faith  ascribes  one  set  of  values  to  the  un¬ 
known  quantity  in  the  equation  of  life  and  unfaith 
another.  We  need  to  remember  this  when  we  are 
inclined  to  accept  rationalistic  interpretations  of 
life  up  to  a  certain  point,  hoping  thus  to  effect  a 
reconciliation  between  faith  and  unbelief  by  im¬ 
posing  our  conclusions  upon  the  other  man’s  prem¬ 
ises.  The  divergence  between  rationalism  and 
Christianity  is  in  the  premises.  We  cannot  adopt 
a  mechanical  theory  of  the  universe  and  then  in 
the  end  insert  somewhere  in  the  niches  of  it  a  belief 
in  prayer  and  free  will.  We  cannot  start  from  the 
premises  of  pantheism  and  hope  to  be  able  to  hold 
a  belief  in  responsible  personality  when  we  get 
through.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that  there  can  be  no 
real  conflict  between  science  and  philosophy  and 
religion ;  but  it  is  only  true  of  an  ideal  science  and 
philosophy  and  religion.  As  these  actually  exist 
they  are  all  intermixed  with  error  and  constantly 
run  athwart  one  another’s  course.  Ideally,  there 
could  be  no  divergence  in  the  testimony  of  three 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD 


225 


men  who  had  been  witnesses  of  the  same  event,  but 
we  know  that  no  three  men  witnessing  the 
same  event  will  give  precisely  the  same  testi¬ 
mony.  Science  and  philosophy  and  religion 
proceed  from  distinct  groups  of  data  and 
are  deduced  from  the  data  by  fallible  men.  Until 
we  can  eliminate  the  factor  of  fallibility  we  must 
expect  that  there  will  be  more  or  less  divergence 
in  the  conclusion.  And  while  it  is  desirable  that 
we  constantly  submit  our  conclusions  to  the  criti¬ 
cism  of  others,  it  is  not  necessary  to  be  very  much 
disturbed  when  we  find  that  the  criticism  is  not 
always  favorable.  Faith,  after  all,  is  an  ulti¬ 
mate  for  each  of  us,  and  is  based  on  our 
own  experience  of  life  in  the  broad  sense 
that  all  the  facts  are  embraced  in  and  proven  by 
living.  The  Christian’s  certainty  rests  on  this, 
that  his  experience  embraces  more  facts  than  the 
experience  of  any  other ;  and  among  these  facts  that 
alter  the  character  of  the  universe  from  what  it  is 
from  the  standpoint  of  any  other  experience.  The 
Christian’s  contention  is  that  the  supernatural,  that 
is,  God  in  action,  is  not  an  hypothesis,  like  the 
other  of  the  scientists  and  the  absolute  of  the  philo¬ 
sopher,  but  an  experienced  fact.  Such  being  his 
premise  his  view  of  the  universe  will  necessarily 
differ  from  that  of  those  who  deny  God  or  accept 
him  as  a  doubtful  hypothesis.  That  science  and 
(16) 


126 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


philosophy  do  not  lend  much  support  to  religion  is 
no  surprise  or  shock  to  the  Christian  because  he 
knows  that  they  omit  what  to  him  is  the  most  vital 
element  in  the  problems  they  deal  with. 

And  yet  we  have  no  quarrel  with  either  while  it 
keeps  to  its  own  ground.  With  science  in  particu¬ 
lar  there  should  be  no  “warfare.’5  The  first  sup¬ 
position  of  the  scientist  is  that  the  world  is  intelli¬ 
gible.  To  speak  accurately,  this  is  not  a  scientific 
datum  but  an  hypothesis  of  faith.  The  investiga¬ 
tor  of  natural  phenomena  must  make  an  act  of 
faith  as  the  preliminary  condition  to  setting  to  work 
at  all.  If  he  had  no  faith  in  the  intelligibility  of 
the  world,  he  could  have  no  hope  of  reaching  intel¬ 
ligible  conclusions  in  investigating  it.  So  far 
science  and  religion  are  agreed  that  they  both  rest 
on  an  act  of  faith.  The  scientist  works  in  faith, 
seeking  to  observe  and  map  out  the  modes  of  oper¬ 
ation  of  the  natural  world.  When  he  succeeds  in 
finding  uniform  modes  of  action  he  summarizes 
them  as  “laws,”  that  is,  observed  sequences.  There 
are,  so  great  is  the  number  of  the  facts  he  has  to 
deal  with,  and  so  complex,  lacunae  in  his  mass  of 
observations,  that  he  cannot  fill,  stretches  of  un¬ 
known  territory  that  he  cannot  traverse.  But 
these  do  not  disturb  him :  because  of  his  primary 
act  of  faith  in  the  intelligibility  of  the  universe  as 
a  y,  hole,  he  is  able  to  make  subsidiary  acts  of  faith ; 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD 


227 


that  the  lacunae  are  not  breaks  in  the  order  of 
nature,  but  gaps  in  his  knowledge.  These  will, 
perhaps,  one  day  be  filled  up  by  observed  facts; 
in  the  meantime  they  can  be  bridged  by  an  hy¬ 
pothesis.  They  are  like  breaks  in  an  inscription 
where  some  letter  has  been  worn  away  or  effaced. 
It  is  not  mere  guess  work  to  assume  that  there 
have  been  letters  there ;  and  from  the  letters  that 
go  before  and  follow,  the  vacant  space  can  be 
filled  with  more  or  less  probability.  The  condition 
is  that  the  restored  letters  shall  make  sense.  So 
the  lacunae  in  the  natural  order  may  be  rationally 
filled  in  by  suppositions  that  will  join  the  two  sides 
of  the  break  and  “make  sense.”  This,  however,  we 
must  insist  rests  on  an  act  of  faith  in  the  intelligi¬ 
bility  of  the  system  as  a  whole. 

The  attitude  of  the  Christian  toward  the  world 
is  essentially  the  same.  His  first  supposition  is  that 
the  world  is  not  only  physically  intelligible  but  that 
it  is  morally  and  spiritually  intelligible.  His  faith 
embraces  the  faith  of  the  scientist  and  goes  beyond 
it.  The  scientist  cannot  get  beyond  matter  and 
force.  Where  these  end  he  can  only  look  off  the 
edge  of  the  universe  and  say,  “I  see  nothing  beyond. 
There  is  no  physical  hypothesis  that  will  lighten 
the  darkness  and  take  me  further.”  But  the  Chris¬ 
tian  has  a  further  hypothesis — the  hypothesis  of 
faith.  He  believes  in  God,  that  the  universe  is  the 


228 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


work  of  a  Spiritual  Intelligence.  He  meets,  as 
does  the  scientist,  in  the  physical  order,  lacunae 
that  he  cannot  fill,  dark  places  that  he  cannot  light ; 
but  he  is  no  more  disturbed  by  them  than  the  scien¬ 
tist  by  the  lacunae  which  lie  in  the  natural  order. 
He  believes  that  the  will  and  operation  of  God  are 
continuous  across  the  lacunae,  though  for  the 
present  he  cannot  see  how.  But  because  of  his 
primary  hypothesis,  that  the  universe  is  a  system 
intelligible,  spiritually  and  morally,  he  goes  on  un¬ 
disturbed.  Seeming  contradictions  do  not  terrify 
him,  problems  of  pain  and  sin,  apparent  limitations 
of  God’s  power  of  goodness,  do  not  disturb  him. 
All  these  to  him  are  but  evidences  of  the  vastness 
of  the  universe,  and  of  his  own  limitations. 

And  the  faith  of  the  Christian  is  fortified  by  the 
coming  of  Christ  into  life.  It  was  my  lot  once  to 
live  where  my  windows  looked  out  to  the  West: 
they  opened  upon  a  little  lake,  a  lake  that  was  a 
living  thing,  changing  its  expression  with  each  hour 
of  the  day — an  opal  set  in  a  frame  of  green.  Across 
the  lake  a  wooded  bank  rose  from  the  water.  In 
the  early  morning  as  the  light  that  heralds  the  sun¬ 
rise  came,  the  beauty  of  the  lake  and  of  the  bank 
was  new  each  moment.  One  could  not  see  the  sky 
where  the  sun  was  coming  in  the  glory  of  the  dawn- 
tints,  or  the  flocks  of  clouds  that  ushered  in  the 
day.  But  the  light,  as  it  touched  the  Western  bank, 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD 


229 


changed  what  had  a  moment  before  been  a  uniform 
stretch  of  dull,  nameless  color,  into  the  endless 
variety  of  a  living  wood.  Each  tree  and  bush 
started  out  in  all  its  individuality ;  there  was  the 
yellow  of  young  willows,  the  silver-green  of  the 
poplar,  the  emerald  of  the  maple,  the  mauve  and 
pink  of  young  oak  buds.  Where  one  had  dis¬ 
tinguished  only  shadows  moving  in  the  darkness 
there  was  all  the  variety  of  throbbing  light — the 
l.’ght  had  come  and  revealed  and  glorified  it. 

So  is  the  coming  of  our  Lord  into  human  life: 
he  comes  as  light :  he  brings  out  its  meaning  and  its 
value,  meaning  and  value  that  has  been  there  all 
the  time,  only  we  were  unable  to  see  them.  His 
presence  flashes  light  into  the  dark  places,  and  the 
perplexity  and  trouble  of  them  pass  away.  He  jus¬ 
tifies  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  and  makes  us 
ashamed  of  our  doubt  and  terror.  He  braces  our 
faith  and  confirms  our  hypothesis  that  this  world  is 
God’s  world  and  is  being  led  by  him  with  the  iner¬ 
rancy  of  infinite  wisdom.  For  unnumbered  genera¬ 
tions  men  had  walked  in  darkness.  They  had  ap¬ 
pealed  in  vain  to  their  accredited  teachers,  their 
philosophers  and  scientists,  for  light  and  help.  But 
they  had  been  fed  with  a  mass  of  unintelligible  and 
contradictory  speculations.  To  maintain  any  hope 
at  all  they  had  been  compelled  to  disregard  their 
teachers  and  turn  from  them  to  the  indestructible 


2  30 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


instinct  that  they  found  in  their  own  souls — the 
instinct  that  told  them  that  whatever  might  be  the 
depressing  appearances  of  the  world,  or  the  con¬ 
tradictory  voices  of  men,  this  is  God’s  world  and 
ruled  by  the  wisdom  of  God.  This  unfailing  in¬ 
stinct  of  God  sustained  men;  and  this  was  justified 
in  the  coming  of  Christ.  He  is  the  Light  that  dis¬ 
sipates  the  world’s  darkness;  and  if  there  are 
dark  places  still,  if  all  the  questions  we  can  ask 
have  not  yet  found  answers,  if  they  are  lacunae  in 
our  knowledge,  still  there  is  abundant  basis  for  our 
faith  and  confident  hope  that  the  Providence  of 
God  which  is  so  far  intelligible  will  that  day  be 
justified  when  the  full  facts  are  revealed.  God  in 
Christ,  as  an  explanation  of  the  universe,  “makes 
sense”. 

Because  we  are  very  sure  of  that,  we  are  opti¬ 
mists — it  is  not  the  least  of  the  boons  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  that  it  enables  men  to  be  optimistic.  We  are 
just  emerging  (at  least  the  signs  point  that  way) 
from  a  long  period  of  pessimism.  The  wail  of  the 
minor  poet  has  long  been  heard  in  the  land.  The 
men  who  have  made  the  literature  of  the  world  in 
the  last  half  century  have  preached  to  us  of  the 
triviality  and  inconsequence  of  life.  Much  of  the 
humor  of  the  world  has  turned  sour.  When  pro¬ 
test  has  been  raised,  the  answer  has  been  that  it  is 
the  duty  of  literature  to  mirror  life — an  indisput- 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD 


231 


able  proposition.  “We  are  going  to  tell  the  whole 
truth  about  life  and  nothing  shall  stop  us”,  is  the 
substance  of  one  of  the  latest  literary  protests  in 
the  interest  of  freedom.  The  meaning  is,  it  would 
seem,  we  will  speak  as  plainly  as  we  like  on  ques¬ 
tions  of  sex.  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  any  ob¬ 
jection  to  so  doing.  In  fact,  I  doubt  if  anyone  has 
been  much  impressed  with  the  prevalence  of  a  dis- 
ciplina  arcana  in  such  matters  in  the  writers  of  the 
last  half  century.  Such  speaking  may  be  some  of 
the  truth  about  life,  but  it  is  certainly  not  all  of  it. 
There  are  some  of  us  who  pass  a  reasonable  amount 
of  our  time  thinking  about  other  things,  and  do 
not  find  ourselves  deprived  of  subjects  of  conversa¬ 
tion  where  the  problem  of  the  sexes  is  excluded. 
We  can,  at  times,  permit  ourselves  to  doubt  whether 
the  quality  of  literature  is,  in  fact,  improving  under 
the  new  discipline.  Nor  is  it  true  that  “life”  means 
slum  life,  or  criminal  life,  or  any  other  fraction  of 
human  living.  Life  is  a  big  thing  of  mingled  lights 
and  shadows,  and  it  is  not  adequately  treated  when 
represented  as  all  shadow.  The  daily  paper,  we  are 
told,  is  a  mirror  of  contemporary  life ;  but  any  one 
who  will  think  for  five  minutes  on  the  matter  will 
see  that  it  is  not.  A  newspaper  man  explained  to 
me  the  other  day  that  the  news  value  of  an  occur¬ 
rence  was  in  proportion  to  the  shock  it  would  pro¬ 
duce.  That  accounts  for  the  fact  that  the  death 


23 2  THE  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

of  some  really  great  man  will  call  forth  a  dozen 
lines  of  obituary,  while  a  column  will  be  devoted 
to  the  luxurious  dog-house  that  has  been  erected 
by  some  foolish  woman  for  her  pets.  News  repre¬ 
sents  an  appeal  to  the  curiosity  or  passing  interest 
of  readers;  it  does  not,  and  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  cannot,  appeal  solely  to  the  interests  that 
are  deep  and  permanent.  One  dots  not  object  to 
the  newspaper,  but  only  to  the  pretension  that  it 
is  a  chronicle  of  life.  Base-ball  has  not  that  im¬ 
portance  in  human  life  that  an  observer  from  another 
planet  might  infer  that  it  had  if  he  relied  on  the 
newspaper  for  his  evidence  or  limited  his  observa¬ 
tion  to  the  streets  of  New  York  during  some  ‘‘final 
series”.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  human  inter¬ 
ests,  and  the  deeper  and  more  valuable  part,  do  not 
make  good  copy,  or  afford  the  appropriate  themes 
for  commercialized  fiction  and  drama. 

My  point  is  that  pessimistic  views  of  life  are  the 
results  of  a  narrow  observation  and  are  rendered 
easy  by  those  who  portray  life  in  terms  of  “shock’’, 
and  find  the  greater  part  of  life  dull  colorless  and 
uninteresting.  If  it  be  true  that  humanity  is  not 
made  up  of  Ivanhoes  and  Colonel  Newcomes;  it 
is  also  true  that  it  is  not  made  up  of  Ann  Veronicas 
and  Senhouses.  The  interests  of  life  are  not 
necessarily  dramatic  or  spectacular.  There  are 
pleasures  and  deep  joys,  heart-searching  experi- 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD 


233 


ences,  situations  that  call  out  all  that  is  best  and 
noblest  in  man,  which  mean  much  in  the  moulding 
of  character,  but  are  valueless  as  documents  of 
publicity.  Yet  if  we  are  to  get  at  a  true  estimate 
of  the  meaning  of  life  these  must  enter  our  account. 
There  are  possibilities  of  life  for  all  of  us  which  we 
too  often  overlook  and  miss,  which  would  raise 
our  lives  to  higher  levels  and  confer  experiences 
that  would  make  pessimism  impossible  for  us.  But 
we  are  fascinated  by  the  box  of  life  and  pour  out 
the  jewels.  How  many  are  there  who  actually 
make  the  effort  to  find  a  meaning  and  purpose  in 
life?  Is  it  not  true  that  the  majority  treat  life  as 
a  meaningless  succession  of  unrelated  days  and 
years,  as  days  and  years  bound  together  by  a  merely 
temporary  purpose?  Events,  in  such  a  life,  be¬ 
cause  they  are  accepted  as  isolated  occurrences  and 
no  effort  is  made  to  see  them  related  to  the  whole, 
may  well  seem  meaningless.  Even  the  most  import¬ 
ant  event  if  so  taken,  is  meaningless.  How  meaning¬ 
less  is  the  birth  of  a  child  who  lives  but  a  few  weeks ! 
But  through  the  brief  life  of  the  child  an  intense 
experience  has  come  to  the  parents,  an  experience 
which  leaves  an  abiding  mark.  Can  either  of  them 
be  just  what  they  were  before?  Has  there  not  been 
some  revelation  through  the  child  that  abides  in 
life?  Are  not  death  and  the  other  world  seen  with 
an  added  shade  of  meaning?  Does  not  heaven 


234 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


mean  more  to  them  because  of  a  treasure  laid  up 
there  ?  Life  may  be  darkened  and  clouded  by  death 
or  it  may  be  enriched  and  deepened.  That  is  as  we 
use  the  fact.  It  gives  the  opportunity  for  the  dis¬ 
play  of  what  is  in  us — pessimism  and  optimism. 

Our  reactions  from  life  are  determined,  no  doubt, 
by  processes  within  ourselves  which  have  been  long 
going  on,  it  may  be,  unnoticed.  You  stand  by  the 
artist  and  watch  him  mix  his  colors  on  the  palette, 
and  the  result  of  his  deft  manipulation  is  some 
glorious  color  that  fascinates  you  as  it  is  spread 
upon  the  canvas.  Why,  you  ask,  that  tiny  touch  of 
yellow?  All  the  painter  can  say  is  that  he  knew 
that  it  was  needed.  He  has  come  to  the  knowledge 
by  long  experience.  His  color  has  gained  an  in¬ 
dividuality  as  the  outcome  of  his  life-work.  You 
and  I  react  in  a  perfectly  individual  way  from  the 
same  facts  of  life,  because  we  each  experience  life 
differently.  Of  course  we  get  no  meanings  if  we  are 
not  looking  for  them ;  but  whatever  meaning  we 
do  get  are  meanings  that  we  can  get  because  of  our 
past.  We  cannot  gather  the  spiritual  meanings 
with  which  even  common  events  are  big,  unless 
we  have  accustomed  ourselves  to  look  upon  life  as 
fundamentally  spiritual,  and  taught  ourselves  to 
look  for  the  spiritual  possibilities  of  events. 

It  is  the  revelation  that  comes  to  us  from  our 
Blessed  Lord,  that  life  is  a  sacred  thing,  the  gift  of 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD 


235 


God,  that  unveils  its  significance.  That  revelation 
has  a  double  effect.  It  shows  us  the  possibility  of 
awful  disaster  that  is  near  every  life — the  possi¬ 
bility  of  destroying  a  thing  of  infinite  value.  Life 
gets  its  value  from  God,  it  is  a  creature  of  God,  a 
mode  of  his  self-manifestation.  One  never  looks 
on  at  the  process  of  the  destruction  of  spiritual 
values  that  goes  on  all  the  time  under  our  very 
eyes  without  heart-ache.  The  streets  of  a  city  ap¬ 
pear  as  battlefields  strewn  with  corpses.  Here  are 
all  the  instruments  of  an  infernal  warfare.  Here 
is  human  ingenuity  tasked  to  the  uttermost  in  the 
hellish  work  of  destroying  souls.  Walk  about 
Times  Square  at  night,  and  if  you  have  a  mind 
that  can  see,  you  will  walk  with  heavy  heart  and 
eyes  filled  with  tears.  This,  you  will  feel,  is  where 
Satan’s  seat  is;  where  the  net  of  excitement  is  cast 
for  willing  victims.  Night  after  night  this  vulgar 
blaze  of  light  looks  down  on  souls  swept  to  spirit¬ 
ual  death  by  the  fascination  of  crude  sensation. 
If  the  lights  could  but  illuminate  the  inner  man! 
That  boy  there  has  stolen  that  he  may  see  the  picture 
show.  That  girl  has  cast  aside  the  advice  of  friends 
and  disobeyed  her  parents  that  she  may  ‘‘enjoy’’ 
herself  tonight.  That  scarcely  more  than  boy  who 
is  going  into  the  saloon,  already  has  eyes  red  with 
wine.  Covetousness,  anger,  adultery — all  the  mor¬ 
tal  sins  walk  at  large  here  under  the  eyes  of  the 


*36  THE  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

police,  the  representatives  of  a  society  which  is  un¬ 
able  to  govern  itself.  Can  you  see  the  souls  sicken¬ 
ing  and  dying — dying  brutally,  riotously,  gaudily? 
And  what  is  your  personal  relation  to  the  sight? 
Is  it  pessimism,  that  accepts  it  as  the  necessary 
outcome  of  an  advanced  civilization?  Is  it  cynicism 
that  goes  its  way  with  contemptuous  amusement  at 
the  vileness  and  stupidity  of  the  human  animal? 
Is  it  indifference  which  accepts  it  without  thought 
as  what  has  been  and  will  be?  Or  does  it  seem  to 
you  a  pitiable  and  useless  waste  which  an  effective 
action  upon  what  this  community  as  a  whole  be¬ 
lieves  would  soon  bring  to  an  end?  For,  after  all, 
this  community  does  not  believe  that  the  seven 
deadly  sins  are  the  proper  expression  of  human  ac¬ 
tivity.  It  does  not  believe  in  the  right  of  passion 
to  gratification,  or  in  the  right  of  covetousness  to 
exploit  the  weak  and  ignorant.  It  does  not  believe 
in  the  right  of  unscrupulous  men  to  make  boys 
drunkards  and  girls  harlots,  to  fill  hospitals  and 
almshouses  with  the  degraded  wrecks  of  men  and 
women.  No !  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  has 
made  it  impossible  that  any  community  should  be¬ 
lieve  that.  The  Light  that  lightens  the  world  has 
made  that  clear.  But  the  Light  is  not  being  trans¬ 
mitted  into  heat — the  heat  of  zeal  that  will  drive 
men  to  live  by  their  beliefs.  Men  do  not  live  by 
their  beliefs,  but  remain  observers,  critics,  drifters, 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD 


237 


waiters  upon  others’  actions,  hoping  that  someone 
will  act,  but  inactive  themselves. 

But  the  revelation  not  only  shows  us  the  disaster 
consequent  upon  this  disregard  of  spiritual  values: 
it  shows  us  the  power  that  is  inherent  in  the  spirit¬ 
ual  life.  It  is  but  a  few  steps  from  the  spiritual 
agony  of  Times  Square  to  where  St.  Mary’s  stands 
with  the  figure  of  the  Crucified  lifted  above  its 
door.  It  is  but  a  step  from  a  life  that  believes  and 
looks  on  in  inaction,  to  a  life  that  believes  with  a 
belief  that  is  dynamic.  It  is  but  a  step!  But  that 
step  involves  an  experience  of  the  Cross.  “I  am  ihe 
light  of  the  world!”  But  the  Light  that  Jesus  is, 
reveals,  first  of  all,  that  he  is  crucified.  The  light 
that  streams  into  the  world  streams  from  a  Cross; 
and  as  it  passes  into  our  lives  and  energizes  them 
it  becomes  in  them  the  power  of  sacrifice — the  power 
of  thpse  who  have  been  crucified  with  Christ  and 
are  risen  in  him.  When  we  are  so  united  to  our 
Lord  that  his  experience  is  ours  we  shall  learn  the 
power  of  spiritual  motive  and  the  energy  of  spirit¬ 
ual  principle.  The  spiritual  life  is  not  a  theory  that 
can  be  learned,  but  an  energetic  action  which  is 
known  in  experiencing  it.  And  when  we  have  ex¬ 
perienced  it  we  can  no  longer  look  on  in  hopeless¬ 
ness  at  the  ills  of  the  world;  hoping,  at  most,  that 
God  will  heal  them :  but  we  shall  know  that  he  has 
redeemed  us  and  made  us  one  with  himself,  to  the 


1 38  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

end  that  through  us  his  work  may  go  on.  The 
word  now  is :  “ye  are  the  light  of  the  world”,  and 
“let  your  light  so  shine  before  men  that  they  may 
see  your  good  works  and  glorify  your  Father  which 
is  in  heaven.”  It  is  through  us  that  the  world- 
darkness  must  be  dissipated. 

The  first  step  in  this  world-illuminating  process 
is  to  focus  the  light  upon  our  own  lives.  They 
must  be  thoroughly  illuminated  before  we  can  trans¬ 
mit  light.  Many  an  attempt  to  transmit  light  comes 
to  a  premature  end  because  the  light  within  is 
darkness.  First  of  all  we  need  to  bring  to  bear  the 
revelation  that  is  in  Christ  upon  the  facts  of  our 
own  lives.  Your  life  needs  that  illumination;  it 
needs  to  see  its  obligations  of  self-perfecting  in 
thought  and  motive,  its  possibility  of  development 
in  spiritual  power,  in  intensity  of  spiritual  purpose. 
We  have  a  standard  in  the  human  action  of  Jesus, 
and  we  must  constantly  recur  to  that.  It  is  our 
shiftless  tendency  to  measure  ourselves  by  some 
other  standard.  We  need  to  educate  ourselves 
spiritually. 

And  notwithstanding  that  there  is  nothing  more 
important  than  our  spiritual  education,  there  is  no 
phrase  more  meaningless  than  spiritual  education 
as  applied  to  the  average  American  Christian. 
Education  implies  systematic  effort  to  call  out  and 
train  immature  powers.  It  implies  intelligence  di- 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD 


239 


rected  to  carefully  considered  ends ;  intelligence 
which  shows  itself,  among  other  things,  in  choice 
of  means  appropriate  to  the  end.  Of  how  many 
men  and  women  can  it  be  said  that  their  spiritual 
state  today  is  the  outcome  of  a  well-considered 
and  carefully  followed-up  system  of  spiritual  edu¬ 
cation?  Yet  the  powers  of  the  spiritual  nature 
have  ends  as  important  and  are  as  capable  of  ef¬ 
fective  training  for  those  ends  as  the  natural  powers. 
But  whatever  spiritual  habits  we  have  are  very 
much  the  result  of  accident.  We  have  picked  up 
in  the  course  of  our  wanderings  on  this  planet  cer¬ 
tain  scraps  of  spiritual  information  which  most 
likely  have  never  been  related  in  our  experience. 
We  have  acquired  certain  religious  customs,  such 
as  saying  our  prayers  and  going  to  church ;  we 
have  accumulated  some  forms  of  action  which  we 
should  describe  as  our  morals,  but  which,  in  fact, 
are  imitations  of  other  people’s  conduct,  conformity 
to  the  fashion  of  life  which  prevails  in  the  circle 
in  which  we  move.  The  evidence  of  this  is  ready 
at  hand.  We  do  not  have  to  take  cases  so  extreme 
as  that  of  the  woman  who  stated  that  she  came 
to  the  church  from  the  Methodists  because  the 
Methodists  forbade  card-playing  and  she  liked  to 
play  cards.  And  then  added — perhaps  because  of 
some  expression  on  the  face  of  her  visitor — “The 
Episcopal  Church  does  believe  in  playing  cards, 


240 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


doesn’t  it?’’  A  priest  is  being  continually  asked 
questions  of  a  most  elementary  kind,  questions  that 
imply  an  abysmal  ignorance  of  the  commonplaces 
of  the  spiritual  life — not  by  people  who  are  un¬ 
lettered,  or  have  passed  their  life  in  unbelief,  but 
by  people  who  all  their  lives  have  been  faithful 
members  of  the  church.  The  crass  ignorance  of 
the  average  Christian  concerning  the  Christian  re¬ 
ligion  is  inconceivable. 

Why  do  not  the  clergy  teach?  Without  discus¬ 
sing  the  capacity  of  the  clergy  to  teach,  which  is 
not  always  what  we  could  desire — the  clergy  cannot 
teach  people  who  will  not  come  to  be  taught.  The 
clergy  have  no  power  to  compel  even  the  children, 
not  to  say  the  men  and  women,  of  their  congrega¬ 
tions,  to  come  to  classes.  And  people  who  are 
quite  able  to  find  time  for  the  theatre,  for  clubs, 
for  card  parties,  are  unable  to  find  time  for  religious 
instruction.  It  is  impossible  to  keep  children  under 
religious  instruction  because  their  parents  are  ut¬ 
terly  indifferent  in  the  matter  of  their  religious 
training.  Adults  are  not  to  be  gathered  because 
— well,  they  have  an  infinite  number  of  excises 
which  nobody  believes,  least  of  all  themselves.  The 
real  fact  is  that  they  are  not  interested,  and  will 
not  go  where  they  are  not  amused.  Religious  in¬ 
struction  cannot  claim  to  be  amusing.  The  only 
thing  one  effects  by  instruction  classes  is  to  gather 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD 


241 


that  element  of  a  parish  which  least  needs  instruc¬ 
tion,  and  which  comes  out  of  a  feeling  of  loyalty. 
The  result  is  a  community  to  which  it  is  almost  im¬ 
possible  to  speak  of  the  deeper  things  of  the  spirit¬ 
ual  life,  and  which  must  be  entertained  with  snip¬ 
pets  of  religious  teaching  carefully  sugar-coated  to 
avoid  even  these  being  found  unpalatable. 

There  are,  of  course,  other  possible  sources  of 
spiritual  training.  There  is  reading,  for  example, 
But  go  into  the  average  Christian  household  and 
look  about  for  the  religious  literature  they  read. 
Will  vou  find  even  a  Bible  in  a  state  of  active  use? 
If  it  is  a  family  containing  religious  members  you 
will  find  one  or  two  devotional  books,  possibly; 
not  much  used,  and  of  small  profit  if  they  were.  I 
suppose  we  have  long  ago  given  up  the  supersti¬ 
tion  that  universal  education  is  going  to  produce  a 
community  of  earnest  seekers  after  knowledge  of 
any  kind.  People  read  newspapers  and  magazines 
and  popular  fiction — and  there  it  stops :  I  tried  to 
converse  the  other  day  with  a  wealthy  woman  who 
divides  her  time  between  Europe  and  America  and 
who  is  extremely  active  and  liberal  in  promoting 
a  certain  kind  of  good  works,  and  I  could  not  find 
that  she  ever  read  anything  at  all.  Most  people 
who  are  not  wealthy  seem  to  consider  the  buying  of 
a  book  an  absurd  waste  of  money.  If  you  recom- 

(17) 


242  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

mend  a  book  and  they  can  borrow  it  they  will  per¬ 
haps  look  into  it. 

These  things  being  so,  how  can  we  hope  for  the 
spread  of  religion  in  any  useful  meaning  of  the 
word  ?  Can  people  who  do  not  give  time  to  spirit¬ 
ual  discipline  ever  become  spiritual  ?  In  the  present 
stage  of  the  evolution  of  the  spiritual  man  it  looks 
as  though  we  might  continue  to  be  content  with  a 
small  minority  of  spiritually  intelligent  people,  and 
do  what  we  can  to  educate  others. 

What,  then,  do  we  mean  by  spiritual  training? 
Canon  Simpson  puts  the  matter  admirably:  “The 
instruction  of  the  Christian  is  not  the  conveyance 
to  the  intellect  of  a  series  of  propositions  concerning 
the  being  of  God,  but  the  education  of  his  spirit  in 
the  art  of  detecting  the  presence  of  God  in  practical 
contact  with  the  facts  of  life.  It  is  the  transmis¬ 
sion  ot  a  key,  and  no  man  can  be  called  a  Chris¬ 
tian  indeed  so  long  as  he  keeps  it  in  his  pocket.  He 
must  for  himself  fit  it  into  the  lock,  and  find  that  it 
opens  the  door.  That  is  the  significance  of  the 
key.”  And  Christ  is  the  key  of  life.  Our  personal 
religion  begins  by  being  an  experience  of  God  in 
Nhrist.  It  is  a  mistake  to  begin  religious  training 
anywhere  else :  to  begin,  for  instance,  with  natural 
knowledge,  and  attempt  to  build  up  to  spiritual 
knowledge  through  that.  It  is  not  true  that  the 
experience  of  God  is  very  difficult,  and  only  to  be 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD 


243 


looked  for  at  the  end  of  religious  training.  The 
child  is  quite  capable  of  a  true  experience  of  God. 
He  quite  naturally  believes  in  our  Lord  and  finds 
him  present  in  his  life.  What  we  are  not  to  look 
for  in  the  child  is  a  religious  theory.  Consequently, 
I  utterly  dissent  from  most  of  the  modern  teaching 
about  the  religious  training  of  children.  It  is 
founded  on  a  bad  psychology.  It  recommends  that 
the  child  shall  not  be  taught  religion  in  its  earliest 
years  because  it  will  inevitably  form  wrong  ideas 
which  will  embarrass  it  at  a  later  stage  of  its  de¬ 
velopment.  But  at  what  stage  of  human  develop¬ 
ment  are  we  certain  not  to  form  wrong  notions  of 
God?  At  any  stage  of  our  development  our  notions 
of  God  are  erroneous,  that  is,  inadequate.  They  do 
not,  and  cannot,  grasp  the  whole  fact  of  God:  the 
point  is  that  they  are  adequate  to  our  needs  in  the 
state  of  development  in  which  we  find  ourselves. 
You  gain  nothing,  therefore,  by  putting  off  the 
age  of  religious  instruction  till  fourteen  or  more. 
The  child  at  six  can  form  a  notion  of  God  on  which 
he  can  usefully  act,  and  can  form  a  habit  of  act¬ 
ing  in  response  to  spiritual  motive,  which  in  value 
outweighs  the  fact  that  he  will  have  later  to  cor¬ 
rect  his  thought  of  God.  It  is  the  habit  of  acting 
that  is  of  the  first  importance.  That  the  child’s 
prayers  are  sometimes  very  extraordinary  in  their 
contents  is  of  no  importance  at  all.  That  he  is 


244 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


learning  to  rely  on  his  heavenly  Father  in  all  the 
c  ncerns  of  his  life  is  all  important.  His  thought 
of  God  will  mature  as  the  years  go  on ;  but  if  his 
mind  is  kept  a  blank  until  some  indefinite  period 
when  his  teacher  thinks  his  thought  of  God  will 
not  be  altogether  unworthy,  it  is  doubtful  if  you 
have  done  more  than  to  deprive  him  of  some  years 
of  experience  with  no  counterbalancing  gain. 

The  creation  of  experience  is  what  spiritual 
training  aims  at,  and  that  can  hardly  be  injected 
ready  made.  It  has  to  grow.  It  can  be  guided  in 
its  growth,  it  can  be  given  material  to  feed  upon. 
Religious  instruction  gives  the  material.  The  ob¬ 
ject  of  the  creed  is  to  guide  religious  experience. 
As  religious  experience  is  experience  of  God  in 
Christ,  it  has  in  all  cases  a  normal  course  of  pro¬ 
cedure,  a  typical  form.  The  creed  is  this,  because 
the  creed  is  the  formulation  of  normal  Christian 
experience.  The  creed  is  not  truth  thought  out  in 
vacuo ;  but  the  truths  of  the  creed  came  into  the 
world  through  Christian  experience,  and  then  lan¬ 
guage  was  sought  to  clothe  and  make  intelligible  the 
experience.  The  struggle  in  the  Church  in  creed 
development,  was  a  struggle,  not  to  discover  some¬ 
thing,  but  to  express  something.  The  only  thing 
at  any  time  new  about  the  creed  was  the  words 
that  conveyed  the  experience.  Therefore  the  pro¬ 
cess  of  spiritual  training  is  the  process  of  exper- 


I  AM  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD  245 

iencing  the  creed — of  passing  for  oneself  through 
the  normal  Christian  experience  which  is  registered 
there.  If  we  cannot  find  the  creed  true,  it  is  be¬ 
cause  we  have  not  succeeded  in  experiencing  God 
in  Christ  as  the  Church  from  the  beginning  has. 
If  we  have  had  God  as  the  creating  and  ruling 
power  in  our  lives,  if  we  have  found  our  Lord 
to  be  our  Saviour,  if  we  are  lifted  up  to  dwell  with 
him  in  heavenly  places,  if  the  Holy  Spirit  is  bring¬ 
ing  forth  its  fruits  in  our  lives,  if  we  are  in  constant 
touch  with  God  in  the  Sacraments — then  we  are 
expressing  just  what  the  creed  states  to  be  the 
truth. 

This  expression,  of  course,  cannot  be  built  up 
without  close  attention  to  our  spiritual  activity. 
The  spiritual  powers  must  be  constantly  exercised. 
That  practice  of  religion  that  consists  in  the  per¬ 
formance  of  occasional  acts  is  certainly  not  ade¬ 
quate  to  an  experience  which  shall  embrace  and 
transfigure  the  whole  life.  We  are  seeking  to  be¬ 
come,  not  men  and  women  of  the  world  who  con¬ 
form  to  the  law  of  God,  but  new  creatures  in  Christ 
Jesus  who  reflect  his  mind.  A  legal  righteousness 
may  be  a  very  fair  imitation  of  the  righteousness* 
that  “exceeds;”  but  is  only  an  imitation.  You 
hold  in  your  hand  a  diamond,  as  you  think,  and 
you  are  satisfied  with  it;  but  take  it  to  the  jewelers 
and  throw  it  into  a  tray  of  real  diamonds  and  you 


246 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


will  see  the  difference.  We  read,  not  long  ago,  of 
a  woman  whose  string  of  pearls  had  been  the  envy 
of  the  world  in  which  she  moved;  but  she  died, 
and  when  her  property  was  appraised,  many  of  the 
pearls  were  confessed  imitations.  (Can  we  carry 
that  temper  of  mind  into  our  religion?  Surely 
there,  at  any  rate,  the  grace  of  sincerity  is  of  all 
worth.  There  we  want  the  pearl  of  great  price, 
a  spiritual  life  flooded  with  the  Light  that  is  Christ. 
We  want  the  light  to  penetrate  to  the  very  darkest 
and  most  dusty  corners  of  our  soul,  and  reveal  their 
need  of  cleansing. 

Christ  is  the  true  Light  that,  coming  into  the 
world,  lighteneth  every  man.  In  his  light  we  see 
light;  and  our  only  aspiration  is  to  be  obedient  to 
the  guiding  of  the  light.  That  light  is  shed  forth 
into  our  souls  abundantly;  and  though  the  medium 
through  which  it  passes  may  dim  the  ray,  still  the 
soul  that  seeks  to  follow  as  far  as  it  can  see,  shall 
not  miss  of  its  finding. 

"For  meek  obedience,  too,  is  light, 

And  following  that,  is  finding  him." 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE. 

Let  us  listen  to  the  zvords  of  our  Lord — 

I  am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life. 


Let  us  picture — 

HE  meeting  of  Jesus  and  Martha.  We  can 
imagine  with  what  growing  despair  Martha 
had  watched  by  the  death-bed  of  Lazarus. 
The  conviction  that  this  illness  was  unto  death 
had  gradually  come  to  her.  There  was  nothing 
that  it  was  within  her  power  to  do — she  could  only 
watch  and  see  her  brother  die.  And  what  would 
add  to  her  pain  was  the  perfect  conviction  that  she 
had  that  there  was  one  who  could  save  him,  if  only 
he  were  there  But  where  to  find  him ;  how  t< . 
reach  him?  If  only  he  would  come!  And  whiL 
she  waits  and  hope  grows  fainter  and  fainter,  Laza  - 
rus  dies.  And  then,  after  all  is  over,  she  hears  that 

247 


*4^  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

Jesus  has  come.  Although  it  is  too  late  to  save 
Lazarus,  she  is  anxious  to  see  esus.  “Lord,  if  thou 
hadst  been  here,  my  brother  had  not  died/’  Is 
there  just  a  shade  of  reproach?  A  feeling  that  he 
who  had  shown  such  wonderful  power  and  knowl¬ 
edge,  might  have  known  that  Lazarus  was  ill,  might 
have  come  earlier?  Is  there  an  underlying  hope 
in  those  other  words :  “But  I  know,  that  even  now, 
whatsoever  thou  wilt  ask  of  God,  God  will  give  it 
to  thee.”  You  have  raised  others  from  the  dead — 
that  was  her  wistful,  unspoken,  feeling.  Watch 
our  Lord,  intent  on  increasing  this  hope,  on  calling 
out  her  faith  in  him.  “Thy  brother  shall  rise  again.” 
Yes;  she  knows  that;  she  is  well  taught  in  her  re¬ 
ligion;  but  that  is  not  just  what  will  comfort  her 
now.  We  see  her  eyes  fixed  on  our  Lord  in  trem¬ 
bling  hope  of  that  something  more  ;  and  then  it  comes 
— “I  am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life:  he  that  be- 
lieveth  in  me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he 
live ;  and  whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  me  shall 
never  die.” 

Consider ,  first — 

That  nowhere  do  we  see  more  clearly  the  love 
and  sympathy  of  Jesus  than  in  his  dealing  with 
mourners.  We  watch  him  halting  the  funeral  cor¬ 
tege  outside  the  gates  of  Nain,  and  taking  pity  on 
the  widow  and  restoring  her  son.  We  follow  him 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE  249 

through  the  crowd  as  he  goes  with  Jairus  to  the 
chamber  where  his  daughter  lies,  and  see  him  take 
her  by  the  hand  and  raise  her  up.  We  see  him  now, 
asking  to  be  led  to  the  tomb  of  Lazarus  where  he 
will  speak  the  word  of  life  that  will  bring  him  back 
from  the  dead.  This  human  sympathy  of  our  Lord, 
called  out,  as  it  is,  by  the  circumstance  of  the  day,  is 
so  ready  and  vivid  a  thing!  And  here  in  the  case 
of  this  family  of  Bethany,  there  is  that  back-ground 
of  human  intercourse  and  affection,  which  tell  of 
quiet  hours  spent  by  the  weary  Jesus  in  the  peace  of 
this  home,  where  there  was  always  ready  for  him 
the  loving  ministries  that  he  must  at  times  have 
longed  for.  When  we  are  weary  and  heavy-laden, 
it  is  so  good  to  have  a  place  to  rest.  “Now  Jesus 
loved  Martha,  and  her  sister,  and  Lazarus.”  His 
customary  gravity  is  disturbed  by  the  emotion  of 
the  moment:  Jesus  wept.  As  the  sisters  stood  by 
the  weeping  Jesus,  did  they  feel  that  the  faint  hopes 
they  had  felt  in  the  news  of  his  coming  were  being 
washed  away  in  those  tears?  Did  they  feel,  as 
the  onlooking  Jews  felt,  “Could  not  this  man,  which 
opened  the  eyes  of  the  blind,  have  caused  that  even 
this  man  should  not  have  died?”  Would  he  weep, 
if  there  was  still  any  hope  for  them?  And  then  the 
words  of  life:  “Lazarus  come  forth.  And  he  that 
was  dead  came  forth,  bound  hand  and  foot  in  grave- 
clothes.”  The  stupendous  wonder  of  the  miracle 


25° 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


would,  for  a  moment  have  prevented  even  joj. 
And  then  the  joy  of  reunion. 

Consider ,  second — 

That  the  love  and  sympathy  of  Jesus  is  not  a 
story  of  the  past.  It  is  a  present  experience;  you 
and  I  know  it.  His  revelation  of  God,  and  of  God’s 
attitude  toward  us,  is  a  permanent  thing.  We 
build  our  lives  and  direct  our  experiences  by  the 
assumption  that  what  our  Lord  was  to  the  widow 
of  Nain,  to  Jairus,  to  the  sisters  of  Bethany,  that 
he  still  is  to-day,  and  toward  us.  We  count  with 
certainty  on  the  experience  of  the  same  love  and 
sympathy ;  we  know  that  the  same  human  affection 
is  about  us,  and  that  it  is  supported  by  the  same  di¬ 
vine  power.  Anyone  who  has  led  a  sincerely  Chris¬ 
tian  life  can  at  any  moment  go  back  into  his  ex¬ 
perience  and  find  there  the  evidences  of  the  divine 
love  and  care.  They  do  not  have  to  depend  on  the 
stories  of  the  past;  on  the  sight  of  Jesus  standing 
at  the  grave  of  Lazarus,  or  at  the  gate  of  Nain,  he 
has  met  them  as  they  went  out  of  the  city  gate 
despairing;  he  has  stood  by  them  as  they  wept  at 
the  tomb  of  those  they  loved.  They  can  say  out  of 
their  own  experience,  “The  Lord  is  my  Light  and 
my  Strength.”  Without  this  experience  of  Jesus, 
could  our  religion  last?  I  cannot  imagine  that  one 
can  go  on  year  after  year,  professing  belief  in  a  re- 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE  2$  I 

ligion  that  never  justifies  its  promises  in  experience. 
I  can  not  imagine  any  one  going  on  for  long,  pro¬ 
fessing  belief  in  a  love  of  God  that  they  have  never 
felt  warm  about  them.  Jesus’  presence  in  the  house  at 
Bethany  is  not  some  exceptional  thing  that  we  read 
with  wonder,  and  regret  that  it  cannot  happen 
again.  Jesus  is  in  our  house;  he  sits  with  us  at  our 
tables,  we  minister  to  him;  he  rejoices  in  our 
happiness  and  comforts  us  in  our  sorrow ;  he  stands 
beside  us  when  we  watch  our  dead  and  says  for  our 
comfort,  “I  am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life.” 

Let  us,  then,  pray — 

That  we  may  realize  this  constant  presence  of 
Jesus  in  all  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  our  lives.  Let 
us  go  forth  to  meet  Jesus  when  we  are  mourning; 
let  us  hold  his  hand  as  we  stand  by  our  dead.  Let 
us  have  confidence  that  he  will  be  the  power  that 
will  raise  us  from  the  dead. 

Grant,  O  Lord,  that  as  we  are  baptized  into  the 
death  of  thy  blessed  Son,  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ, 
so  by  continual  mortifying  our  corrupt  affections  we 
may  be  buried  with  him;  and  that,  through  the 
grave,  and  gate  of  death,  we  may  pass  to  our  joyful 
resurrection;  for  his  merits,  who  died,  and  was 
buried,  and  rose  again  for  us,  thy  Son,  Jesus 
Christ,  our  Lord. 


»52  THE  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

I  suppose  that  there  are  no  words  which  have 
brought  such  a  flood  of  help  and  comfort  to  human 
souls  as  these  words  of  our  Lord.  We,  who  have 
lived  our  lives  in  the  light  of  Christian  revelation, 
are  unable  to  appreciate  what  death  meant  before 
that  revelation  came.  There  came  death  to  every 
man,  and  after  that  a  great  interrogation  point. 
Was  man  still  living  or  had  he  utterly  perished  cut 
of  the  universe?  If  he  lived,  was  he  still  man,  or 
had  he  passed  into  some  other  form  of  life?  If  he 
lived,  was  his  state  better  or  worse?  These  ques¬ 
tions  found  an  answer  in  our  Lord’s  words,  backed 
as  they  were  by  such  an  exhibition  of  his  power  as 
the  raising  of  Lazarus. 

It  is  true  that  there  were  theories  enough  about 
the  future  state  of  man  current  in  the  time  of  cur 
Lord :  the  Jews,  indeed,  believed  in  a  future  resur¬ 
rection.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  have  a  theory  of  a 
Resurrection,  to  be  told,  as  Mary  and  Martha  had 
been  told,  that  there  would  be  a  Resurrection  on 
the  last  day;  it  was  another  thing  to  have  that 
Resurrection  connected  with  a  person  who  is  him¬ 
self  the  guarantee  of  its  truth,  because  he  himself 
has  passed  through  the  experience  of  death.  There 
are,  no  doubt,  still  doubters,  people  who  to-day  are 
yet  saying,  that  we  are  quite  ignorant  of  the  future, 
that  no  one  has  returned  from  the  other  side  of 
death.  But  that  is  not  true.  Lazarus  returned. 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE  253 

The  widow's  son  of  Nain  returned,  the  daughter  of 
Jairus  returned.  “But  they  left  no  memoirs  and 
went  back  again  without  speaking  any  words  that 
have  reached  us.  We  should  be  glad  to  listen  to 
a  report  of  their  experience.,,  That,  no  doubt,  is 
true ;  but  there  is  one  who  did  not  go  back  without 
speaking,  one  who  assures  us  that  he  has  passed 
through  the  experience  of  death,  and  that,  when  the 
time  comes  that  we  must  meet  it,  he  will  go  with 
us.  He  assures  us  that  when  we  go  out  of  this  life 
we  shall  not  go  out  into  the  dark,  friendless  and 
lonely,  but  that  we  shall  go  with  him.  That  world 
which  men  still  speak  of  as  dark  and  unknown,  is 
neither  dark  nor  unknown  to  those  who  have  the 
vision  of  faith.  To  those  our  Lord  has  revealed  it, 
lighted  by  his  word  and  by  his  presence.  Unknown 
in  the  sense  that  we  cannot  picture  it  to  the  imagina¬ 
tion  it  still  is ;  but  it  is  not  unknown  in  its  essential 
conditions.  We  know  all  that  we  need  to  knew. 
We  know  that  it  is  the  world  of  our  Father  that  we 
go  to,  filled  with  the  light  and  glory  of  his  presence, 
and  filled  too  with  the  love  and  sympathy  of  our 
Saviour  who  has  gone  before  us  to  make  ready  the 
way,  who  is,  indeed,  himself  the  Way  in  that  as  in 
all  worlds.  He  who  stood  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus 
and  said,  “Come  forth,”  will  stand  at  the  gate  of 
Paradise  and  say,  “come  in.”  “Come  ye  blessed  of 


254 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


my  Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  you 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world.” 

To-day,  then,  if  the  world  is  still  filled  with  men 
and  women  who  are  ignorant  of  what  lies  on  the 
other  side  of  death,  they  are  ignorant  as  any  one 
may  be  of  any  subject  which  they  decline  to  study. 
And  because  the  instinct  of  immortality  has  been 
deep  in  men  at  all  times,  we  may  say  that  the  ig¬ 
norance  of  it  is  not  a  natural  but  an  acquired  ig¬ 
norance — the  ignorance  of  those  who  have  reasoned 
themselves  out  of  the  natural  belief  which  should 
have  led  them  to  the  reception  of  the  guarantees 
with  which  Christianity  certifies  it.  If  to-day  men 
meet  death  as  a  thing  dreaded  and  unknown  it  is 
because  they  ignore  the  information  that  is  at  their 
hand.  They  are  as  men  starting  on  a  far  journey 
who  should  ignore  all  the  reports  of  the  travelers 
who  have  preceded  them,  and  insist  on  treating  the 
country  through  which  they  are  to  travel  as  un¬ 
known  and  unexplored.  Professor  Tyndale,  with 
all  the  hope  of  the  Gospel  before  him,  with  that 
certainty  of  the  supremacy  of  Christ  over  death 
which  had  sustained  the  dying  for  so  many  gen¬ 
erations  of  Christians  and  removed  from  them  all 
fear  of  the  grave  and  what  lies  beyond  it  present  to 
his  mind,  could  not  dare  to  say,  “Like  streaks  of 
morning  cloud  we  fade  into  the  infinite  azure  of  the 
past.”  Professor  Huxley,  writing  to  his  sister  on? 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE  255 

the  death  of  their  mother,  says,  (and  oh!  the  pity  of 
it)  “I  offer  you  no  consolation,  my  dear  sister,  for 
I  know  of  none.”  Surely  of  all  men  most  miser¬ 
able!  It  is  worth  while  being  a  Christian  if  only 
to  have  something  better  to  say  than  that  in  the  face 
of  death.  We,  standing  by  the  bed  of  death,  hear 
a  shout  of  triumph  over  it,  “Death  is  swallowed 
up  in  victory.”  We  turn  away  from  the  place 
where  the  tired  body  is  laid  at  rest  comforted  by 
the  words  of  one  who  had  seen  the  Risen  and  As¬ 
cended  Jesus ;  “I  would  not  have  you  to  be  ignorant, 
brethren,  concerning  them  which  are  asleep,  that  ye 
sorrow  not,  even  as  others  which  have  no  hope. 
For  if  we  believe  that  Jesus  died  and  rose  again, 
even  them  also  which  sleep  in  Jesus  will  God  bring 
with  him.” 

We  may  be  bold  to  say  that  our  Lord  could  not 
be  satisfied  by  transient  intercourse  with  us,  but  that 
he  will  have  us  to  be  with  him  forever.  There  is  no 
thought  in  all  our  religion  that  is  more  overwhelm¬ 
ing  than  that;  and  yet  that  is  what  is  involved  in 
his  taking  to  himself  our  nature,  in  his  wanting  to 
be  with  us  at  all.  I  fancy  that  we  sometimes  think 
of  the  love  of  our  Lord  as  a  kind  of  abstract  and 
general  love,  a  love  of  the  race,  that  seeks  the  good 
of  humanity  as  a  whole,  that  applies  to  individuals 
as  they  are  included  in  the  race,  but  lacks  the  per¬ 
sonal  note  which  our  human  love  has.  We  think  it 


256  the  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

a  part  of  our  limitation  and  feebleness  that  we  can¬ 
not  express  any  fervid  love  of  men,  but  only  for  the 
individuals  whom  we  know,  or  at  least  know  of. 
God's  love  is  greater,  in  that  it  can  embrace  the 
whole  at  once.  That  is  true;  God’s  love  does  em¬ 
brace  the  whole;  but  it  would  be  feeble  like  ours, 
only  in  an  inverse  sense,  if  the  love  of  the  individual 
man  was  weakened  by  his  being  loved  only  as  a  unit 
in  the  whole  mass  of  humanity.  Perhaps  it  would 
clear  our  thought  if  we  were  to  substitute  for  the 
rather  threadbare  notion  of  love  that  we  have,  the 
thought  of  the  friendliness  of  God.  That  seems  to 
me  to  accent  the  personal  relation :  “I  have  called 
you  friends ;”  and  when  we  hear  our  Lord  saying 
that,  we  seem  to  get  the  note  of  intimacy.  St. 
John  shows  his  unfailing  insight  as  to  the  meaning 
of  spiritual  reality  when  he  says  of  our  Lord  that 
he  loved  “his  own,"  a  word  revealing  the  closeness 
of  his  union  with  us.  Our  Lord  loved,  not  the 
Apostles,  but  Peter  and  James  and  John.  And  he 
loves  each  of  us  in  the  same  close,  personal  way. 
May  we  not  dare  to  say  that  while  the  love  of  God 
is  infinite  and  perfect  for  all  his  children,  yet  for 
each  child  there  is  an  uniqueness  in  the  love  which 
is  determined  by  the  quality  of  the  child  himself? 
That  would  seem  to  be  implied  in  any  relation  that 
we  can  rightly  call  personal. 

Much  the  same  truth  is  implied  in  the  fact  of  our 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE  257 

creation,  if  we  will  think  it  out.  If  God  created  us 
it  is  because  he  wanted  us.  We  cannot  think  of 
God  as  setting  in  motion  forces  over  which  he  after¬ 
wards  loses  control,  or  as  contemplating  the  results 
of  those  forces  simply  in  the  large,  without  thought 
of  the  individual.  Men  talk  of  the  evolution  of  the 
universe  as  a  fast  process  working  to  ends  that  are 
unspeakably  great,  but  remorseless  of  the  fate  of 
the  individual.  God  is  to  them  the  commander-in- 
chief  of  a  great  army  who  directs  it  to  a  successful 
campaign,  but  is  thoughtless  of  the  fate  of  the  in¬ 
dividual.  Cruelty  to  the  individual  is  a  necessary 
accident  in  the  working  out  of  the  whole  plan.  But 
in  the  light  of  our  Lord’s  teaching  we  may  not  so 
think  of  God.  His  thought  is  as  close  to  the  man 
who  falls  out  of  the  ranks  to  die  by  the  wayside,  as 
to  the  advance  of  the  whole  army.  And  if  we  have 
to  conceive  of  him  as  sacrificing  the  individual  to 
the  mass,  it  is  through  no  failure  of  love  and  ten¬ 
derness  to  the  individual ;  it  is  still  the  personal 
love  and  care  of  God  which  guides  his  treatment  of 
us.  There  is  no  hiding  or  forgetfulness  of  that 
when  he  appoints  us  to  bear  the  burden  and  heat  of 
the  day.  There  is  an  often  missed  note  in  our 
Lord’s  teaching  of  the  particular  providence  of 
God:  “Not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  without 
your  Father.”  It  is  the  seeming  waste  and  loss 
that  our  Lord  stresses  as  evidence  of  the  priceless 
(18) 


258  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

care  of  God.  And  the  response  of  the  divine  giv¬ 
ing  is  wonderfully  set  out  in  St.  Paul's  saying :  “He 
that  spared  not  his  own  son,  but  delivered  him  up 
for  us  all,  how  shall  he  not  with  him  freely  give 
us  all  things  ?” 

Our  Lord’s  mission  was  not  solely  or  chiefly  a 
mission  of  teaching.  He  came  to  rescue  us  and 
bring  us  into  unity  with  himself  and  with  the 
Father.  He  came  that  he  might  abide  with  us  for¬ 
ever.  There  is  nothing  transient  in  his  relation  to 
us ;  it  is  a  relation  for  eternity.  Our  Lord  enters 
humanity  as  a  permanent  power,  as  the  ever-spring¬ 
ing  source  of  its  inner  life.  His  power  in  us  be¬ 
comes  that  “Power  of  an  endless  life”  of  which  the 
author  of  the  epistle  of  the  Hebrews  speaks.  That 
is  an  illuminating  phrase.  When  our  life  acquires 
stability  our  whole  attitude  is  changed.  It  is  the 
feeling  of  human  weakness  and  instability  and 
of  the  fruitlessness  of  even  our  best  efforts.  The  best 
and  greatest  that  man  can  do  has  no  more  signi¬ 
ficance  than  his  least  and  weakest,  if  in  the  end 
nothing  but  the  grave  awaits  him,  if  “that  which 
befalleth  the  sons  of  men  befalleth  the  beasts,  even 
one  thing  befalleth  them ;  as  the  one  dieth,  so  dieth 
the  other;  yea,  they  have  all  one  breath;  so  that  a 
man  hath  no  preeminence  above  the  beast.”  Again 
and  again  has  the  conviction  that  this  is  man’s  fate 
paralyzed  his  best  efforts,  and  driven  him  to  seek 


1 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE  259 


from  life  the  most  that  the  senses  can  give  of  tran¬ 
sient  enjoyment,  “to  suck  his  orange  dry”  while  he 
has  it.  Men  of  nobler  mode  have  sought  to  lose 
themselves  in  the  thought  of  the  race  and  to  see  a 
factitious  immortality  in  the  continued  existence  of 
humanity.  There  is  an  element  of  greatness  in 
this — to  spend  one’s  life  unselfishly  for  the  profit 
of  those  whom  we  shall  never  see  and  who,  per¬ 
chance,  will  never  hear  of  us.  But  this  too  is 
vanity,  for  there  is  no  immortality  of  the  race. 
However  distant,  still  the  hour  strikes  when  the 
race  of  man  will  vanish  from  an  exhausted  planet — 
the  years  of  the  earth  are  as  nothing  to  the  years  of 
eternity.  It  is  the  revelation  of  an  endless  life 
which  brings  to  us  the  sense  of  power,  bringing,  as 
it  were,  the  conviction  that  we  work  for  an  eternity 
in  which  we  shall  share.  That  which  is  best  in  us 
is  permanent,  the  silver  and  gold  and  precious 
stones  abide;  only  the  wood  and  hay  and  stubble 
perish.  Whatever  of  worth  we  succeed  in  accom¬ 
plishing  is  a  permanent  contribution  to  the  wealth 
of  the  universe.  In  the  power  of  an  endless  life, 
stimulated  and  energized,  we  throw  ourselves  into 
the  work  of  the  kingdom  as  those  whose  citizen¬ 
ship  contains  the  promise  of  an  eternal  inheritance 
destined  not  to  fade  away  even  with  the  passing 
of  all  things  temporal.  We  are  participants  of  the 
unshaken  things  which  remain  after  the  removing 


a6o 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


of  those  things  that  are  shaken.  We  are  inhabi¬ 
tants  of  the  eternal  years. 

This  power  which  entering  into  men  gives  them 
eternity,  this  power  of  an  endless  life,  is  the  power 
of  him  who  is  the  Life,  and  is  the  power  by  which 
men  rise  from  the  dead.  Our  Resurrection  is  a 
certainty  because  we  are  in  him :  we  cannot  be 
separated  from  him  by  anything  but  our  own  will. 
Separation  is  always  against  his  will  and  his  work, 
against  the  effort  he  is  making  to  master  us  now. 
God  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead,  he  does  not  form 
some  new  relation  with  men  after  they  are  dead. 
The  power  that  shall  bring  about  our  Resurrection 
is  not  some  new  power  that  shall  be  exerted  upon 
us  at  the  Resurrection  at  the  last  day:  it  is  work¬ 
ing  in  us  now. 

It  is  the  power  that  results  from  our  union  with 
him,  and  consequently  we  see  that  the  maintenance 
of  this  life  of  union  is  the  end  toward  which  our 
spiritual  activities  are  to  be  directed..  Our  lives 
must  be  conducted  with  a  sense  of  their  possibil¬ 
ities  :  we  work  with  our  eyes  on  the  future  in  which 
the  full  significance  of  the  child  of  God  shall  first 
appear.  Having  that  in  mind  we  are  content  with 
the  slowness  of  our  attainment  here.  We  are  con¬ 
tent  to  do  pioneer  work;  to  sow  for  a  distant  har¬ 
vest,  knowing  that  in  the  end  “we  shall  reap,  if  we 
faint  not.”  The  present  has  no  importance  except 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE 


261 


as  a  part  of  a  whole.  We  are  told  of  the  impor¬ 
tance  of  this  life,  of  this  world.  Yes,  it  is  important, 
if  it  is  continuous  with  another  world.  If  it  is  an 
experience  entirely  unrelated,  if  we  conceive  hu¬ 
man  experience  here  as  uninfluential  on  the  future 
life,  it  would  seem  that  this  world  cannot  have 
much  importance.  And  that  is  the  way  in  which  a 
large  part  of  the  human  race  seems  to  regard  life. 
Any  kind  of  a  life  here  is  to  be  followed  automati¬ 
cally  by  an  improved  life  hereafter.  Such  a  dis¬ 
agreeable  thing  as  hell  cannot  be  conceived  to  exist 
anywhere  in  the  universe  of  God.  That  can  only 
mean  that  there  is  no  continuity  between  this  world 
and  the  next,  and  that  character  does  not  count; 
that  saint  and  sinner  alike,  having  passed  through 
the  experience  of  death,  shall  be  welcomed  to  the 
Mansions  of  the  Blessed.  But  it  is  inconceivable 
that  we  should  slip  out  of  one  character  and  into 
another  because  we  have  crossed  the  threshold  that 
divides  two  states  of  being.  If  this  is  possible,  then 
both  life  and  God  are  unintelligible,  being  guided  by 
no  continuity  of  purpose.  We  can  only  base  hope 
on  a  purpose  in  the  universe  that  shows  itself  to  be 
stable.  We  have  no  courage  or  stimulus  to  work 
if  death  results,  not  in  the  unveiling  of  a  world  in 
which  the  spiritual  actions  begun  in  this  world  con¬ 
tinue  and  progress,  but  into  a  topsy-turveydom  in 
which  values  are  completely  altered  and  anything 


262 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


may  happen.  We  are  told  that  final  separation 
from  God  is  inconceivable;  that  God  will  not  toler¬ 
ate  such  a  blot  on  the  universe  as  is  implied  in  the  ' 
existence  of  souls  that  are  unreconciled  to  him. 
But  the  essence  of  hell  is  the  separation  of  the  soul 
from  God;  and  that  would  seem  to  be  as  conceiva¬ 
ble  at  one  period  of  God’s  rule  of  the  universe  as 
at  another.  The  soul  dead  in  trespasses  and  sin 
exists  now,  and  in  that  state  of  death  passes  to  the 
next  stage  of  existence;  that  it  should  be  acknowl¬ 
edged  as  existing  in  this  state,  and  be  inconceivable 
in  the  next  state,  can  only  be  because  we  are  im¬ 
posing  our  artificial  divisions,  arising  out  of  time- 
conditions,  upon  the  universe  as  related  to  God. 
Neither  is  it  necessary  to  conceive  of  the  state  of 
“the  lost”  as  implying  continued  rebellion  against 
God.  What  that  state  really  implies  is  lost  capac¬ 
ity  for  the  Beatific  Vision  as  the  result  of  opposi¬ 
tion  to  God.  The  opposition  may  cease,  doubtless 
does  cease,  without  the  capacity  being  recreated — 
for  that  is  what  would  have  to  take  place.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  think  of  hell  as  punishment  in  any 
other  sense  than  this:  that  the  rejection  of  spiritual 
life  here  is  a  permanent  fact,  a  loss  which  cannot 
be  made  good  hereafter.  That  is  a  sufficiently  aw¬ 
ful  thought :  but  it  is  less  awful  than  the  thought 
that  the  universe  is  governed  by  a  purpose  on  the 
stability  of  which  we  cannot  count. 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE  263 

Mary  and  Martha  had  faith  in  the  Resurrection 
of  the  dead.  “I  know  that  he  shall  rise  again  in 
the  Resurrection  at  the  last  day.”  But  that  was 
not  the  faith  that  our  Lord  wanted  to  create  in 
them.  He  was  calling  man  to  a  faith  that  was 
richer  than  any  that  was  possible  under  the  older 
dispensation.  Our  Lord  had  come  to  make  that 
richer  faith  possible.  He  wanted  the  sisters  to  be¬ 
lieve,  not  that  Lazarus  would  rise  again,  but  that  he 
was  not  really  dead.  “1  am  the  Resurrection  and 
the  life :  he  that  believeth  on  me,  though  he  were 
dead,  yet  shall  he  live :  and  whosoever  liveth  and 
believeth  on  me  shall  never  die.”  Men  had  for 
centuries  believed  in  the  survival  by  the  soul  of 
death ;  they  had  even  believed  in  some  places  in  a 
final  Resurrection;  but  what  our  Lord  taught  was 
that  those  who  were  in  him,  those  whom  he  had 
united  to  himself,  did  not  die  in  the  sense  that  death 
wrought  any  separation  between  himself  and  them. 
Their  relation  to  him  is  untouched  by  death ;  so  far 
as  it  is  affected  at  all,  it  is  in  the  direction  of  a  more 
perfect  revelation  and  a  closer  union. 

Have  we  that  attitude  toward  death?  Do  we 
think  of  it  as  weaving  tighter  the  bond  between  our 
Lord  and  us?  Do  we  think  of  the  world  beyond 
death  as  being  for  the  Christian  a  nearer,  bet¬ 
ter  understood  communion  with  our  Saviour?  Do 
we  think  of  it  as  the  entrance  upon  a  new  phase  of 


264  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

that  Eternal  Life  which,  our  will  and  work  co-oper¬ 
ating,  our  Lord  has  been  imparting  to  us  here  ?  As 
we  conceive  the  “other  world”  as  continuous  with 
this,  and  the  “other  life”  as  but  the  fruitage  of  this, 
we  begin  to  understand  the  importance  of  this  life. 
We  understand  the  creative  power  of  our  present 
living.  We  are  big  with  our  own  future,  we  are 
creating  our  future  selves.  We  are  laying  up  the 
treasure  which  survives  all  temporal  change.  M. 
Rolland  has  put  it  finely :  “In  the  measure  that  one 
lives,  in  the  measure  that  one  creates,  in  the  mea¬ 
sure  that  one  loves  and  loses  those  whom  one 
loves,  one  escapes  death.  In  the  creation  of  a  new 
work  we  escape  from  ourselves  and  are  saved  in 
the  work  we  have  created,  in  the  souls  whom  we 
have  loved  and  who  have  left  us.”  However  de¬ 
fective  M.  Rolland’s  belief  in  immortality,  hi* 
words  are  true  for  the  Christian.  Not  only  we  our¬ 
selves,  but  all  our  work  is  in  Christ.  There  it  is 
stored  up  for  us  and  we  have  lost  nothing.  No 
thought,  no  work,  which  is  the  expression  of  our 
life  in  him  can  ever  be  lost,  but  is  a  permanent  en¬ 
richment  of  our  nature. 

Could  we  endure  to  think  of  another  world  if  this 
were  not  so?  Could  we  endure  to  think  of  death 
as  the  closing  of  one  story,  a  story  we  have  written, 
in  tears  and  joy,  a  story  into  the  making  of  which 
all  the  passion  and  energy  of  our  life  went,  and  the 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE  265 

beginning  of  another  which  is  continuous  with  it 
only  in  the  sense  that  it  has  the  same  hero  ?  I  would 
as  soon  believe  in  some  theory  of  transmigration  by 
which  I  am  to  resume  life,  indeed,  but  under  an 
altered  form  and  in  entire  forgetfulness  of  what 
has  gone  before.  The  glory  of  the  Christian  be¬ 
lief  in  the  Resurrection  Life  is  that  it  is  the  same 
life  in  Christ,  carrying  with  it  all  its  content  that 
has  been  laid  up  in  Christ.  Its  human  relations 
established  in  this  world,  if  they  have  been  spirit¬ 
ualized  and  rendered  stable  by  their  relation  to  our 
Lord,  go  with  it  into  the  other  world.  Nothing  is 
lost  that  is  loved  in  our  Lord ;  all  the  affections  we 
have  known  here  we  resume  there,  if  they  were  in 
him.  Thus  have  the  thoughts  of  the  Christian  been 
beautifully  translated: 

Sleep  on,  Beloved,  sleep  and  take  thy  rest, 

Lay  down  thy  head  upon  thy  Saviour’s  breast, 

We  love  thee  well,  but  Jesus  loves  thee  best — 

Good  night. 

Calm  is  thy  slumber  as  an  infant’s  sleep, 

But  thou  shalt  wake  no  more  to  toil  or  weep, 

Thine  is  a  perfect  rest,  secure  and  deep — 

Good  night. 

Until  the  shadow  from  the  earth  is  cast, 

Until  he  gathers  in  his  sheaves  at  last. 

Until  the  twilight  gloom  is  overpast — 

Good  night 


a  66 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


Until  the  Easter  glory  lights  the  skies, 

Until  the  dead  in  Jesus  shall  arise, 

And  he  shall  come,  and  not  in  lowly  guise — 

Good  night. 

Until  made  beautiful  by  love  divine, 

Thou  in  the  likeness  of  thy  Lord  shall  shine, 

And  he  shall  bring  that  golden  crown  of  thine — 
Good  night. 

Only  “Good  Night,”  Beloved,  not  farewell, 

A  little  while,  and  all  his  saints  shall  dwell 
In  hallowed  union,  indivisible — 

Good  night. 

Until  we  meet  again  before  his  throne, 

Clothed  in  the  spotless  robes  he  gives  his  own, 

Until  we  know,  even  as  we  are  known — 

Good  night. 

Have  you  noticed  what  our  Lord  said  to  his 
Apostles  when  he  told  them  of  Lazarus’  death?  He 
said,  “I  am  glad  for  your  sake  that  I  was  not 
there.”  He  stresses  a  great  value  that  the  death 
and  raising  of  Lazarus  was  to  have  for  them  and 

i 

those  who  should  come  after  them.  It  was  to  be 
the  great  demonstration  that  he  is  the  Life,  second 
only  in  value  for  our  faith  to  his  own  Resurrection. 
It  manifests  the  completeness  of  his  mastery  of  the 
humanity  which  he  had  taken.  He  who  is  Essen¬ 
tial  Life  shows  how  great  is  the  power  of  that  Life 
— a  power  that  easily  triumphs  over  the  power  of 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE  267 

death.  As  we  stand  by  the  open  grave  and  hear 
his  summons :  “Lazarus,  come  forth” ;  and  see 
“Him  that  was  dead  come  forth  bound  hand  and 
foot  in  grave  clothes,”  we  are  prepared  for  our 
Lord’s  own  Resurrection.  For  how  could  he  who 
has  such  power  over  death  be  himself  bound  by  it? 
We  are  prepared  for  our  own  death  which  we  now 
understand  can  be  but  a  passing  incident  to  those 
who  have  been  united  to  the  Essential  Life. 

But  there  is  another  truth  that  lies  in  our  Lord’s 
word  which  casts  much  light  on  the  divine  method 
of  our  education.  It  brings  out  the  fact  that  that 
education  is  along  the  lines  of  sacrifice.  As  God  in 
Christ  willingly  sacrificed  himself,  so  he  does  not 
hesitate  to  demand  sacrifices  of  his  children.  It  is 
involved  in  the  vocation  of  the  child  of  God  that  he 
be  ready  at  the  divine  call  to  offer  himself,  glad  that 
his  Father  has  provided  him  somewhat  to  offer,  and 
will  accept  this  service  at  his  hand. 

In  order  that  our  Lord  might  thus  demonstrate 
his  mastery  of  life  and  death  it  was  necessary  that 
Lazarus  should  suffer  and  die.  Do  we  shrink 
from  the  sacrifices  that  God  asks  of  us?  It  is  writ¬ 
ten  that  “Jesus  loved  Martha  and  Mary  and  Laz¬ 
arus.”  Let  that  sink  into  our  hearts ;  when  God 
asks  us  for  sacrifice,  he  is  asking  us  to  serve  him. 
For  the  most  part  we  are  sent  out  on  some  hidden 
path  of  service  the  meaning  of  which  we  do  not 


268 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


see.  What  is  required  of  us  is  not  to  understand, 
but  to  act  in  loyal  faith.  The  explanation  will 
come  in  time.  He  said  to  an  Apostle :  “What  I  do, 
thou  knowest  not  now,  but  thou  shalt  know  here¬ 
after.’'  Lazarus’  burden  was  of  the  heaviest.  He 
was  called  to  suffer,  to  die,  and  to  be  called  back 
from  death,  only  once  more  to  pass  the  same  ex¬ 
perience.  Jesus  loved  Lazarus ,  and  because  he 
loved  him  he  could  ask  of  him  this  great  service. 
We  know  that  we  shall  not  ask  in  vain  of  those 
whom  we  love  and  who  love  us — for  Lazarus  loved 
Jesus .  I  dwell  often  on  this  coming  back  of  Laz¬ 
arus,  not  in  idle  curiosity  as  to  what  he  had  experi¬ 
enced  in  the  three  days,  but  in  wonder  at  the  love 
of  our  Lord  that  must  have  been  his  that  our  Lord 
could  ask  of  him  this  great  thing.  There  are  not 
many,  I  fancy,  of  whom  our  Lord  could  have  asked 
so  much.  Let  us  think  of  that  when  next  our  Lord 
calls  us  to  any  suffering  or  loss — that  God  is  pro 
posing  to  us  a  mode  of  service,  proposing  it  to  us 
because  he  trusts  us.  There  are  other  reasons,  no 
doubt,  why  we  are  called  to  suffer ;  but  this  at  least 
is  one  of  them;  that  God  loves  us  so  much  and  so 
trusts  our  love  of  him,  that  he  feels  that  he  can 
trust  us  for  a  little  with  the  bearing  of  his  Cross, 
and  that  we  will  bear  it  gladly  and  with  unfailing 
faith. 

It  is  another  form  of  the  same  divine  asking  that 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE  269 

we  see  when  we  look  at  the  case  of  Mary  and 
Martha.  There  had  been  to  them  the  anxious  days 
of  waiting  by  the  brother’s  sick-bed ;  there  had  been 
the  feeling  that  there  was  one  who  could  help,  if 
only  they  could  reach  him;  there  had  been  the  dis¬ 
appointment  that  he  did  not  come.  We  seem  to 
read  between  the  lines  of  the  story  that  the  sisters 
were  expectant  of  our  Lord — that  they  felt  that  he 
must  know  and  would  come.  But  the  brother  died 
and  was  laid  in  the  tomb  and  hope  faded.  Even 
the  onlookers  at  the  meeting  of  our  Lord  and  the 
sisters,  felt  that  this  was  a  case  where  he  might  be 
expected  to  intervene  with  that  power  that  he  had 
so  often  exercised  on  behalf  of  the  ill : — “Could  not 
this  man,  which  opened  the  eyes  of  the  blind  have 
caused  that  even  this  man  should  not  have  died?” 
They  felt  that  the  love  that  our  Lord  bore  to  the 
family  at  Bethany  created  an  obligation  of  help¬ 
fulness  toward  them.  What  they  could  not  see  was 
that  the  obligation  was  mutual — that  there  was  an 
obligation  of  love  toward  our  Lord.  Our  Lord  is 
calling  into  activity  both  sides  of  the  relation.  Be¬ 
cause  their  faith  and  love  was  so  great  that  it  could 
bear  any  strain  he  might  put  upon  it,  he  asked  them 
to  endure  the  pain  of  their  brother’s  illness  and 
death  in  order  that  he  might  “Manifest  his  glory” 
and  show  forth  the  power  of  the  Life  which  he  is. 
Their  sufferings  were  incident  to  the  perpetual  wit- 


270 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


ness  of  our  Lord’s  power  in  the  raising  of  Lazarus, 
and  they  were  rewarded  by  the  renewed  evidence 
of  his  love  that  his  action  toward  them  showed. 

It  is  from  such  stories  as  this  that  we  learn  the 
inner  meaning  of  suffering.  We  simply  darken 
counsel  when  we  declaim  against  the  justice  of  the 
world-order,  and  deny  that  wisdom  and  love  are 
visible  in  a  world  in  which  pain  prevails.  The 
thought  of  our  time  shows  its  superficiality  and  in¬ 
competence  to  deal  with  spiritual  problems,  in  the 
impatience  and  bitterness  of  its  utterances  in  re¬ 
gard  to  the  suffering  that  is  in  the  world.  That  is 
because  it  declines  to  study  the  action  of  Jesus  as 
the  perfect  revelation  of  God.  It  has  created  an 
ideal  of  comfort  as  the  last  word  of  a  world  which 
is  governed  by  justice,  and  denounces  a  God  who 
will  not  live  up  to  its  ideal.  But  from  the  action 
of  Jesus  we  learn  that  comfort  is  not  the  ideal  of 
God  for  his  creatures,  but  the  passion  of  love  which 
draws  them  to  union  with  himself.  Love  lives 
above  comfort,  and  is  eager  for  service  and  sacri¬ 
fice;  and  the  most  eager  of  all  loves  to  give  itself 
unstintingly,  is  the  love  of  God.  “God  so  loved  the 
world  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  son,”  and  the 
son  having  “loved  his  own,  loved  them  unto  the 
uttermost.”  It  is  a  mark  of  our  union  with  our 
blessed  Lord  that  we  love  thus  without  limit, — that 
we  so  love  that  we  understand  that  back  of  all  God's 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE  271 


asking  of  us  for  sacrifice  is  his  perfect  love.  We 
have  learned  that  even  the  sharpest  pain  of  separa¬ 
tion  from  those  we  love,  may  be  met  without  any 
tinge  of  bitterness  or  rebellion,  met  with  glad  look¬ 
ing  on  to  a  union  re-knit  in  a  deeper  love. 


“Oh,  blest!  It  is  for  us,  not  thee,  we  grieve! 

Yet  even  so,  ye  voices,  and  you  tide 
Of  souls  innumerous  that  panting  heave 
To  rhythmic  pulses  of  God’s  heart,  and  hide 
Beneath  your  myriad  booming  breakers  wide 
The  universal  life  invisible, 

Give  praise !  Behold,  the  void  that  was  so  still, 

“Breaks  into  singing,  and  the  desert  cries — 

Praise,  praise  to  thee !  praise  for  thy  Servant,  Death, 
The  Healer  and  Deliverer!  From  his  eyes 
Flows  life  that  cannot  die;  yea,  with  his  breath 
The  dross  of  weary  earth  he  winnoweth, 

Leaving  all  pure  and  perfect  things  to  be 
Merged  in  the  soul  of  thine  immensity ! 

“Praise,  Lord,  yea,  praise,  for  this  our  Brother  Death 
Though  also  for  the  fair  mysterious  veil 
Of  life  that  from  thy  radiance  severeth 
Our  mortal  sight,  for  these  faint  blossoms  frail 
Of  joy  on  earth  we  cherish,  for  the  pale 
Light  of  the  circling  years,  we  praise  thee  too: — 1 
Since  thus  as  in  a  web  thy  spirit  through 

“The  phantom  world  is  woven: — Yet  thrice  praise 
For  him  who  frees  us !  Surely,  we  shall  gain, 

As  guerdon  for  the  exile  of  these  days, 


272 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


Oneness  with  thee;  and  as  the  drops  of  rain, 

Cast  from  the  sobbing  cloud  in  Summer’s  pain, 
Resume  their  rest  in  ocean,  even  so  we, 

Lost  for  a  while,  shall  find  ourselves  in  thee.” 

We  all  face  death ;  but  we  face  it  unshirkingly  in 
him  who  is  its  Conqueror,  who  is  the  Resurrection 
and  the  Life  of  all  who  die  in  him.  Conscious  of 
being  in  him  we  look  out  with  eyes  in  which  there 
is  no  terror  toward  the  setting  sun  and  note  that 
for  us  the  clouds  are  taking  on  the  autumnal  splen¬ 
dors  which  tell  of  the  fast  approaching  end  of  the 
world — of  the  “little  day”  of  our  lives.  Old  age 
comes  on,  and  we  feel  it  come  with  serenity  of 
mind.  There  is,  no  doubt,  an  old  age  that  is  an 
horrible  thing — hard,  rebellious,  godless.  We  feel 
under  its  phenomena  a  fierce  restlessness,  the  lack 
of  any  peace  with  God,  any  trust  in  Christ,  any 
communion  with  the  Blessed  Spirit.  The  aged  are 
often  like  men  being  dragged  to  execution,  fruit¬ 
lessly  struggling  against  the  inevitable.  All  this  is  too 
terrible  to  think  of.  And  it  is  little  better  when  the 
approach  of  death  is  met  with  a  dumb  Stoicism,  or 
with  eyes  in  which  we  see  the  fear  that  no  one 
speaks  of.  The  priest  is  called  to  bedsides,  where 
he  is  warned  by  foolish  physicians  and  doubting 
friends  that  he  must  not  speak  of  death  or  the  sacra¬ 
ments  lest  fear  should  take  a  few  hours  from  a 
life  already  spent.  That  is  a  horrible  fear,  and  one 


I  AM  THE  RESURRECTION  AND  THE  LIFE  273 

that  we  should  arm  ourselves  against  ere  the  hour 
of  our  departing  strikes.  It  is  guarded  against  by 
a  life  in  Jesus,  a  life  consciously  committed  to  him 
in  all  its  ways  and  all  its  hours,  a  life  that  we  feel 
will  not  be  shattered  but  crowned  by  death.  To 
those  who  have  found  Jesus  to  be  already  their 
Resurrection  and  their  Life,  death  is  but  the  going 
out  to  him — the  discovering  of  a  face  that  they  have 
long  wished  to  see.  The  oncoming  of  age  is  felt  to 
be  his  approach,  and  as  it  comes  there  is  a  thin¬ 
ning  of  the  veils  that  hide  him  now.  Calm  and 
serene  those  aged  ones  wait ;  their  days  are  marked 
by  an  ever  deepening  peace.  You  catch  a  glimpse 
of  them  when  they  think  that  they  are  alone,  and 
the  lips  are  murmuring  a  prayer  which  is  a  speak¬ 
ing  with  Jesus  whom  they  seem  to  see,  for  their 
faces  are  lit  with  the  light  of  his  presence,  and  their 
eyes  smile  at  visions  which  are  invisible  to  us.  The 
mysteries  of  the  hidden  life  have  been  revealed  to 
them.  They  speak  out  of  a  rich  experience  of  the 
things  they  have  seen  and  known.  Their  laid  up 
treasure  of  loved  ones  is  very  near  to  them — they 
can  now  almost  speak  across  the  ever-narrowing 
space  that  separates  them.  There  is  a  growing 
silence,  for  they  have  not  much  more  to  say  to  this 
world  and  its  interests.  The  peace  of  God  is  al¬ 
ready  upon  them;  they  meet  the  “last  enemy”  in 
the  realized  love  of  the  Father : 

(19) 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


274 


Into  the  silent,  starless  Night  before  us, 

Naked  we  glide; 

No  hand  has  mapped  the  constellations  o’er  us. 

No  comrade  at  our  side, 

No  chart,  no  guide. 

Yet  fearless  toward  that  midnight,  black  and  hollow. 
Our  footsteps  fare; 

The  beckoning  of  a  Father’s  hand  we  follow — 

His  love  alone  is  there, 

No  curse,  no  care. 

Let  us,  then,  rejoice  in  death,  looking  to  the 
meeting  that  is  beyond  when  “we  shall  know  even 
as  we  are  known.” 

“Thou  hast  embarked;  thou  hast  made  the  voy¬ 
age  ;  thou  art  coming  to  the  shore ;  now  land !” 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD. 
Let  us  listen  to  the  words  of  our  Lord  — 


I  am  he  that  liveth  and  was  dead. 


Let  us  picture  — 

'HE  Risen  Lord  as  he  appeared  to  St.  John. 
There  are  several  visions  in  which  our 
Lord  appeared  to  the  Apostle  whom  he 
loved.  He  walks  amid  the  Golden  Candlesticks  and 
has  the  Seven  Stars  in  his  hands ;  he  appears  as  the 
Lamb  slain  for  the  sins  of  the  world;  or  again,  he 
is  the  Lamb  standing  on  Mount  Sion  surrounded 
by  the  hosts  of  the  Pure.  Let  us  see  him  as  in  this 
last  vision,  while  the  New  Song  goes  up  to  the  ac¬ 
companiment  of  the  music  of  the  harpers  harping 
with  their  harps.  We  see  the  Throne,  and  the  Liv¬ 
ing  Creatures  and  the  Elders,  and,  surrounding 
them  the  “hundred  and  forty  and  four  thousand 
having  his  Name  and  the  Name  of  his  Father  writ- 

275 


276  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

ten  in  their  foreheads.”  These  have  entered  into 
the  joy  of  their  Lord.  And  as  we  watch  them 
there,  we  feel,  do  we  not?  that  their  earthly  life  is 
justified.  “These  are  they  whom  men  aforetime 
had  in  derision  and  made  a  proverb  of  reproach; 
whose  life  they  counted  madness  and  their  end 
without  honor.  But  now  they  are  seen  to  be  num¬ 
bered  among  the  children  of  God,  and  their  lot  to  be 
among  the  saints.”  If  we  would  from  time  to  time 
look  into  heaven  through  the  eyes  of  St.  John,  we 
would  run  less  danger  of  a  false  estimate  of  the 
meaning  of  this  life.  The  real  meaning  of  life  can 
only  be  read  in  its  outcome.  And  the  meaning  of 
the  life  of  the  saints  is  seen  to  be  that  they  dwell 
in  the  presence  of  their  Master,  and  that  they  fol¬ 
low  him  whithersoever  he  goeth.  Look  once  more 
at  the  Lamb  and  the  multitude  of  his  Holy  Ones; 
listen  once  more  to  the  Voice  as  the  voice  of  many 
waters. 

Consider ,  first  — 

That  we  are  constantly  to  judge  of  life  by  some 
fragment  of  it,  some  passing  experience,  some 
merely  temporary  phase  of  existence.  We  hardly 
ever  pause  to  make  the  attempt  to  relate  the  present 
experience  to  the  whole  meaning  of  life.  We  say, 
perhaps,  that  we  cannot  know  the  whole  meaning 
of  life;  but  we  can,  in  broad  outline.  We  do  know 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD 


277 


the  purpose  of  God  for  life,  the  end  to  which  life 
tends  if  we  cling  to  that  purpose.  We  can  read  the 
issue  of  human  life  because  we  can  read  the  issue 
of  our  Lord’s  life.  We  know  that  God’s  purpose 
for  us  is  that,  like  our  Lord,  we  should  triumph 
over  death  and  pass,  by  means  of  our  joyful  Resur¬ 
rection,  to  be  with  him  forever.  Consider,  that 
pain  and  trial,  struggle  and  suffering,  we  know  to 
be  part  of  the  discipline  that  issues  in  triumph  over 
death  and  eternal  association  with  him  who  through 
his  death  and  Resurrection  passed  to  the  Throne 
of  his  Kingdom.  Our  Lord  is  not  pictured  to  us, 
after  his  Resurrection,  as  enthroned  in  solitary 
grandeur  over  a  world  of  conquered  subjects;  but 
he  is  pictured  as  living  in  the  closest  intimacy  with 
all  those  who  have  faithfully  followed  the  steps  of 
his  most  holy  life.  His  prayer  is  answered,  and 
where  he  is,  there  are  his  servants  also.  When 
stripped  of  the  gorgeous  symbolism  wherewith  St. 
John  has  clothed  his  visions,  the  heavenly  world  is 
a  very  human  world :  a  world  of  love  and  sympathy 
and  joy  and  constant  intercourse  of  the  Redeemer 
with  one  another  and  with  their  Lord.  It  is  not  at 
all,  as  it  has  been  imagined,  a  world  so  artificial  and 
unreal  as  to  be  repulsive;  it  is  a  world  where  hu¬ 
man  life  developed  to  its  highest  capacity,  is  all  the 
more  beautifully  human  because  it  is  filled  with  the 
divine. 


27 8  THE  self-revelation  of  our  lord 
Consider ,  second  — 

That  the  conquest  over  death,  which  is  the  essen¬ 
tial  preliminary  to  our  entrance  into  the  Life  of 
the  Blessed,  is  not  a  thing  that  begins  when  we  die 
— that  we  may  therefore  excuse  ourselves  from  con¬ 
sidering  till  we  die;  but  our  conquest  of  death  be¬ 
gins  now.  We  have  already  entered  into  Life.  All 
that  part  of  our  experience  that  we  can  accurately 
characterize  as  Christian  is  a  part  of  the  per¬ 
manent  acquisition  of  life,  an  earnest  of  the 
life  of  heaven  that  we  are  to  experience 
more  fully  hereafter.  We  have  not  to  wait 
till  the  morrow  of  death  to  know  the  meaning  of 
love  and  joy  and  peace;  to  know  the  reality  of  com¬ 
munion  with  God.  The  fruits  of  the  spirit  are  not 
perishable  fruits  that  fall  from  our  lives,  leaving  no 
trace.  They  are  abiding  fruits,  that  are  garnered 
unto  Life  Eternal.  It  is  ours  now  to  “taste  and  see 
how  gracious  the  Lord  is.”  Every  spiritual  victory 
that  we  gain,  every  spiritual  experience  of  which 
we  reap  the  fruit,  takes  its  place  in  the  eternal  ac¬ 
quisitions  of  life.  They  are  victories  won  over 
death;  that  is,  victories  the  results  of  which  death 
cannot  destroy.  Our  life  is  a  continuous  whole, 
each  stage  issuing  from  the  preceding  stage,  each 
experience  growing  out  of  the  preceding  experi¬ 
ence.  Let  us  learn  to  judge  of  our  activities  from 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD  279 

the  point  of  view  of  their  eternal  values — learn  to 
distinguish  the  wood,  hay,  stubble,  from  the  silver 
and  gold  and  precious  stones  that  will  endure  the 
fires  of  the  judgment.  Death  can  have  no  terrors 
for  those  who  have  already  passed  from  death  unto 
Life;  those  whose  association  with  our  Lord  now 
is  so  intimate  that  death  can  only  result  in  the 
strengthening  of  the  bonds  of  affection,  not  in  their 
rupture.  “Having  loved  his  own,  he  loved  them 
unto  the  end let  us  so  love  him. 

Let  us,  then,  pray  — 

For  deeper  love  and  more  conscious  association 
with  our  Lord  now.  Let  us  pray  to  shape  our  lives 
always  with  conscious  reference  to  their  end,  which 
is  to  be  with  our  Lord. 

O  God,  who  by  Christ’s  Resurrection  restorest 
us  to  Life  Eternal ;  raise  us  up  to  the  Author  of  our 
salvation,  who  is  seated  at  thy  Right  Hand ;  that  he 
who  came  to  be  judged  for  our  sake,  may  come  to 
judge  in  our  favor,  Jesus  Christ,  thy  only  Son,  our 
Lord. 

We  give  thee  thanks,  O  God  the  Father,  who 
hast  delivered  us  from  the  power  of  darkness,  and 
translated  us  into  the  kingdom  of  thy  Son;  grant 
therefore,  we  pray  thee,  that  as  by  his  death  he 
has  recalled  us  to  life,  he  may  raise  us  up  in  his  love 


280 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


to  joys  eternal;  through  the  same  Jesus  Christ,  thy 
Son,  our  Lord. 

•  •••••• 

What  we  are  shown  in  the  Book  of  the  Revela¬ 
tion  is  the  Christ  who  has  triumphed.  The  work 
of  redemption  is  over;  past  is  that  wondering  life 
of  ministry  which  is  the  perfect  expression  of  the 
sympathy  of  God ;  over  are  the  pain  and  weariness 
which  were  the  outcome  of  his  efforts  to  minister 
to  “his  own”;  past  is  the  Cross  on  which  he  had 
hung  looking  out  over  a  world  that  had  rejected 
him,  but  which  thus  “lifting  up”  would  some  day 
bring  to  his  feet.  By  his  victory  he  has  won  the 
right  to  reign  and  has  passed  through  the  heavens 
and  is  set  down  at  the  Right  Hand  of  God.  When 
St.  John  opens  the  door  of  heaven  that  we  may 
look  in,  we  see  our  Lord  acting  there  on  behalf  of 
the  work  of  his  Incarnate  Body :  he  is  sending  mes¬ 
sages  to  his  earthly  Church.  The  care  that  he 
shows  for  those  whom  he  has  left  to  carry  on  his 
work  proves  to  us  that  he  is  the  same  Jesus  whom 
we  have  known  in  the  pages  of  the  Gospel.  His 
attitude  in  heaven  toward  men  is  the  same  attitude 
that  he  maintained  on  earth,  the  attitude  of  close 
and  personal  love.  We  feel,  indeed,  that  as  the  As¬ 
cended  Head  of  the  Church  he  is  continuously 
watching  over  every  detail  of  the  life  of  his  Body. 
The  letters  that  he  sends  from  heaven  to  the  “Seven 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETII  AND  WAS  DEAD  28  t 

churches”  have  a  wider  intent  than  the  warning  and 
encouragement  of  the  particular  church  to  which 
they  are  sent.  They  have  the  further  intention  that 
they  reveal  once  for  all  our  Lord’s  attitude  to  the 
Church  on  earth.  Every  detail  of  its  life  is  inter¬ 
esting  to  him,  he  is  watching  its  sins  and  its  failures, 
its  hopes  and  successes,  and  that  not  with  the  silent 
watchfulness  of  an  interested  spectator,  but  with 
an  energetic  watchfulness  which  intervenes  con¬ 
stantly  in  the  course  of  the  Church’s  life  with 
praise  and  blame,  with  reward  and  punishment. 
The  growth  and  the  dying  of  Christian  commun¬ 
ities  is  not  merely  due  to  the  operation  of  the  laws 
of  social  development,  it  is  not  a  department  of  an¬ 
thropology  or  biology,  but  is  due  to  the  action  of 
our  Lord.  The  Church  is  being  continuously 
judged  and  disciplined  that  it  may  respond  better 
to  the  will  of  its  Risen  Master,  that  it  may  more 
completely  embody  the  mind  of  its  Ascended  Head. 

“I  am  he  that  liveth  and  was  dead” :  that  is  his 
message  to  his  Church  on  earth.  And  there  is  great 
significance  in  that  backward  look — “and  was 
dead.”  There  is  in  it  a  recording  of  all  his  human 
experience,  the  suggestion  that  by  that  experience 
he  triumphed  and  won  for  his  humanity  the  place 
that  it  now  holds  at  the  Right  Hand  of  the  Father. 
He  has  won  the  right  to  be  the  Head  of  the  Body. 
It  is  no  transient  victory,  the  results  of  which  are 


282 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


presently  to  be  laid  aside.  Our  humanity  in  him 
has  reached  the  state  of  stable  union  with  the  di¬ 
vine — “and  behold  I  am  alive  forever  more.”  Our 
risen  humanity  has  become  central  in  the  spiritual 
world,  it  has  become  the  permanent  medium  of  the 
divine  action  for  the  spiritualization  of  man. 
Through  it  man  attains  the  end  for  which  he  was 
created.  Heaven  is  no  state  to  which  choice  souls 
are  translated  after  having  been  rescued  from  the 
sinfulness  that  is  in  this  world;  but  is  the  term  of 
the  evolution  of  the  spiritual  man.  The  evolution 
which  began  with  the  dawn  of  life  upon  this  planet, 
and  proceeds  to  its  consummation  in  the  production 
of  the  animal  man,  and  there  came  to  an  end,  no 
high  physical  form  being  produced  or  to  be  ex¬ 
pected,  was  the  basis  of  another  and  higher  evolu¬ 
tionary  process,  a  process  still  going  on,  by  which 
the  spiritual  man  is  brought  forth.  That  process 
only  begins  here ;  we  see  but  its  first  stages :  its  com¬ 
pletion  is  wrought  out  in  the  union  of  the  human 
and  the  divine,  and  is  revealed  in  its  entirety  in 
heaven,  where  the  soul  shall  be  once  more  united 
to  the  body,  but  to  a  changed  and  spiritualized 
body,  fit  to  be  the  medium  of  the  spirit’s  action. 
This  process  is  completed  in  Christ,  and  is  proceed¬ 
ing  in  all  those  who  are  in  Christ.  The  first  stages 
of  this  evolutionary  process  are  what  we  are  now 
witnessing  in  this  world,  evidenced  by  the  conflict 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD  283 

of  light  and  darkness,  the  tremendous  clash  of  spir¬ 
itual  and  material  ideals,  which  mark  the  now  exist¬ 
ing  world-order.  Our  lives  are  set  on  the  battle¬ 
field  where  the  opposed  forces  swing  and  sway,  are 
interwined  in  perplexing  combinations,  where  tne 
front  is  ever  changing,  and  the  inrush  of  new  com¬ 
batants,  on  this  side  or  that  is  compelling  new  form¬ 
ations.  What  seem  to  us  social  crises,  the  rise  and 
fall  of  ecclesiastical  systems,  new  phases  of  thought, 
new  philosophies  and  morals,  are  but  these  shifting 
combinations  of  the  battlefield,  whereby  the 
process  of  the  spiritual  evolution  of  man  is  taking 
place.  It  seems  to  us,  pausing  in  the  midst  of  the 
battle  and  trying  to  get  a  glimpse  through  the 
smoke  and  dust  of  the  groupings  on  the  field,  that 
the  battle  now  sways  this  way  and  now  that,  that  it 
is  uncertain  on  which  side  will  lie  the  victory,  or, 
indeed,  that  the  powers  of  darkness  are  in  posses¬ 
sion  of  the  field.  But  there  are  times  when  the 
wind  of  the  Spirit  clears  the  sky,  and  our  raised 
eyes  see  a  Throne  set  amid  the  glories  of  the  hea¬ 
vens,  and  we  catch  the  words  of  the  anthem  that 
drifts  out,  “worthy  is  the  Lamb  which  was  slain  to 
receive  power,  and  riches,  and  wisdom,  and 
strength,  and  honor,  and  glory,  and  blessing  .  .  .  . 
blessing,  and  honor,  and  glory,  and  power,  be  unto 
him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and  unto  the  Lamb 
forever  and  ever.”  And  we  hear  a  voice,  a  human 


284 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


voice,  saying,  “I  am  he  that  liveth  and  was  dead, 
and  behold  I  am  alive  forever  more.”  And  we 
know  that  all  is  well  upon  the  battle-field  over  which 
floats  the  banner  of  the  Resurrection. 

And  it  is  well  too  with  each  one  of  those  who 
goes  out  to  battle  under  that  banner.  The  tend- 
ancy  of  our  narrow  outlook  is  to  make  us  timid  and 
pessimistic.  We  dwell  on  death  as  though  that 
were  the  final  thing.  All  things  end  in  death,  we 
say  with  a  sigh.  There  is  a  touch  of  morbidity  in 
the  mind  that  makes  the  hectic  tones  of  autumn,  or 
the  dying  glow  of  the  sunset,  the  characteristic  sym¬ 
bols  of  human  life.  It  is  life  that  is  imperishable, — 
not  the  waning  Autumn  but  the  resurgent  Spring 
is  the  symbol  of  our  life.  We  only  seem  to  die,  we 
do  not  die  utterly.  He  who  said,  “I  am  the  Resur¬ 
rection  and  the  Life;  he  that  believeth  on  me, 
though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live :  and  whoso¬ 
ever  liveth  and  believeth  in  me  shall  never  die”  has 
our  lives  in  his  keeping.  You  shall  go  out  and  see 
the  whole  hillside  lying  sun-baked  and  bare  under 
the  cloudless  heaven  which  long  has  restrained  its 
rain.  The  fire  may  sweep  over  it,  and  it  shall  be  as 
a  blackened  desolation  before  your  eyes.  But  let 
the  heavens  be  overcast  and  the  rain  come,  and  it  is 
but  hours  before  it  springs  to  vivid  greenness.  So 
it  is  often  with  the  life  of  our  spirit.  There  are 
times  when  its  ebb  runs  very  low,  when  unwatered 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD  285 

by  any  rain,  life  lies  like  the  hillside,  sun-baked  and 
brown.  The  pitiless  glare  of  the  world-sun  ha3 
dried  it  up;  the  heat  of  passion  has  exhausted  it. 
Its  energies  have  vanished.  Such  a  period  is  apt 
to  come  upon  us  in  middle  life  when  the  ideals  of 
youth  have  lost  their  fascination  or  been  disappoint¬ 
ed,  and  the  ideals  of  maturity  are  yet  to  come.  In 
the  interval,  we  have  felt  the  fascination  of  a  dis¬ 
cordant  set  of  ideals,  the  ideals  of  the  market-place 
of  this  world.  Our  spiritual  powers  are  thrust  into 
the  background  and  their  pleading  with  us  is  not 
listened  to.  How  one  trembles  for  the  man  in  the 
moment  of  his  worldly  success.  His  life  is  ever 
harder  baked  by  the  sun  of  prosperity  and  by  the 
hot  winds  of  care.  In  this  “fullness  of  bread,”  we 
ask,  is  materialism  going  to  master  him?  Already 
the  life  of  the  Spirit  is  waning  and  its  meaning  is 
being  lost.  The  special  times  that  belong  to  God 
are  being  absorbed  by  the  need  of  pleasure,  of  ex¬ 
ercise,  of  society ;  they  are  snatched  as  brief  breath¬ 
ing-places,  but  the  breath  that  he  takes  in  these  di¬ 
vinely  provided  pauses,  is  no  longer  the  breath  of 
divine  refreshment,  his  failing  strength  no  longer 
seeks  the  food  of  God :  the  weary  brain  and  nerve 
seek  relief,  not  in  the  repose  of  God’s  peace,  but  in 
the  motor,  the  golf-links,  the  club,  the  week’s-end. 
God  fades  out  of  the  consciousness;  the  conscience 
is  relieved  by  “good  works,”  that  is,  checks  flung  to 


a86 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


charity.  The  disease  of  the  strong,  the  able,  the 
successful,  the  characteristic  disease  of  middle  age, 
is  upon  the  man — confidence  in  the  stability  and 
completeness  of  this  world.  It  is  pity!  For  the  be¬ 
ginnings  of  the  man’s  life  had  lain  otherwhere. 
“Thou  hast  been  in  Eden,  the  garden  of  God.” 

But  it  may  be  that  our  vision,  which  sees  only 
death,  is  deceived  by  the  brownness  of  the  sun¬ 
baked  hillside.  It  may  be  that  with  the  coming  of 
the  rain,  the  Autumn  rain,  there  will  be  a  Resurrec¬ 
tion  of  seemingly  dead  things.  It  may  turn  out 
that  where  we  saw  death  there  was  but  suspended 
animation.  The  beneficent  coming  of  age  may  be 
as  the  dew  of  the  Spirit  falling  upon  the  life.  As 
the  ideals  of  youth  palled  and  vanished,  so  may  the 
ideals  that  succeeded  them,  and  the  man  come  back 
to  the  ideals  of  life  as  a  thing  spiritually  understood. 
He  may  come  out  of  the  experience  of  the  Eccle- 
siast  with  powers  purified  and  chastened,  not  to  find 
all  the  work  of  man  vanity  and  vexation  of  the 
spirit,  but  to  find  it  the  medium  of  the  vision  of 
God.  God  is  in  the  stone-strewn  desert  of  middle 
age  though  he  saw  it  not,  and  missed  the  vision  of 
the  ladder  set  up  to  heaven.  But  if  we  fail  to  find 
God  there,  he  has  other  ways  to  reach  us  and  other 
visions  to  send,  and  one  may  break  upon  our  sight 
in  the  very  heart  of  the  sunset. 

It  is  because  of  the  enduring  power  of  life  that 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD  287 

we  are  enabled  to  hope  for  many  souls  in  whom, 
for  the  present,  we  can  see  small  signs  of  any  spirit¬ 
ual  quality  at  all.  The  seed  hidden  for  centuries 
in  the  wrappings  of  the  mummy  which  may  spring 
and  grow  and  be  fruitful  when  it  is  planted  in  the 
earth,  is  a  symbol  of  the  dormant  grace  of  the  sac¬ 
raments  which  abides  in  the  soul,  ready  once  more 
to  vivify  it  if  we  give  it  place.  We  spend  endless 
time  and  labor  in  training  each  generation  of  the 
young,  well  knowing  that  after  a  few  years  cur 
work  will  seem  lost  and  our  labor  vain.  We  know 
that  in  many  cases,  perhaps  the  majority,  the  world 
will  grasp  them  and  that  they  will  be  sucked  into 
the  whirlpool  of  sensuality,  swept  away  by  the 
tides  of  passion,  sunk  to  the  level  of  the  Christless 
life  of  those  whom  their  work  in  the  world  will 
give  them  for  companions.  They  will  be  unable  to 
bear  the  strain  of  loneliness,  “of  being  peculiar,”  of 
standing  outside  of  the  daily  habits  of  their  society. 
This  is  inevitable,  considering  the  moral  and  spirit¬ 
ual  weakness  of  the  immature.  But  we  trust  to  the 
seed  that  we  have  sown,  the  abiding  power  of 
the  Life  that  waits  and  watches.  After  long  years, 
it  may  be,  the  world-weary  or  sin-weary  man  or 
woman  comes  back  to  the  sacraments.  After  long 
neglect  the  baptized  find  their  way  to  the  confes¬ 
sional.  For  God  waits  long  and  works  through 


a88 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


many  ways  and  the  weariness  of  worldliness  and 
the  satiety  of  success  are  among  them : 

“Let  him  be  rich  and  weary,  that  at  least 
If  goodness  lead  him  not,  yet  weariness 
May  toss  him  to  my  breast.” 

Although  our  Lord  never  experienced  this  sus¬ 
pended  animation  of  the  soul,  he  understood  it  and 
sympathized  with  those  who  were  suffering  from  it. 
In  those  parables  which  deal  with  the  finding  of  lost 
things  such  a  state  of  things  seems  to  be  in  his  mind. 
The  sheep  that  has  strayed  still  belongs  to  the  flock. 
The  coin  that  is  lost  is  still  in  the  house.  The  hope 
of  recovery  is  therefore  great.  To  us,  many  a  fife 
seems  spiritually  hopeless,  where  there  is,  no  doubt, 
a  basis  for  God’s  hope.  We  are  all  too  prone  to 
assume  that  the  state  of  souls  is  what  we  see  it  to 
be.  But  there  are  many  souls  with  which  God  has 
hidden  dealings:  he  brings  the  pressure  of  his  life 
to  bear  upon  them  in  ways  that  we  cannot  follow. 
We  discover  sometimes  that  God  has  been  keeping 
his  hold  upon  the  soul  where  we  had  thought  all  in¬ 
tercourse  was  ended.  There  is  no  more  dangerous 
judgment  than  the  judgment  that  we  pass  on  the 
spiritual  state  of  man.  It  turns  out  that  the  man 
whom  we  had  thought  to  have  abandoned  all  belief 
is  still  saying  his  prayers,  is  day  by  day  committing 
his  life  to  the  love  and  mercy  of  God.  That 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD  289 

woman  whom  we  thought  altogether  given  over  to 
the  world,  it  appears  has  never  wholly  given  up  the 
sacraments.  That,  you  say,  may  be  simply  the  sur¬ 
vival  of  old  habits  which  there  has  not  been  the 
energy  or  courage  to  break  with.  Possibly:  but  is 
it  not  also  possible  that  these  survivals  are  still 
points  of  vital  contact  with  God  ?  That  they  repre¬ 
sent  a  hold,  however  slight,  still  maintained  by  the 
divine  life?  We,  quite  unconsciously,  no  doubt, 
fall  into  the  way  of  imposing  our  ecclesiastical  sys¬ 
tems  upon  God;  but  even  so  far  as  they  represent 
the  will  of  God  they  are  but  directive  of  our  action, 
and  not  limitations  upon  God’s  action.  Let  us  be 
sure  that  the  love  of  God  and  the  Life  of  God  pene¬ 
trate  to  places  where  we  find  it  difficult  to  conceive 

t 

its  entrance,  and  have  dealings  with  the  souls  that 
to  our  eyes  are  altogether  separate  from  God.  May 
this  thought  be  to  us  a  basis  of  hopefulness  and  un¬ 
tiring  prayer. 

When  we  find  our  own  spiritual  life  losing  some¬ 
thing  of  its  buoyancy,  growing  dim  and  tarnished 
by  its  contacts  with  the  unspiritual,  our  attitude  to¬ 
ward  ourselves  should  be  quite  different  from  that 
that  we  assume  toward  others.  We  need  to  deal 
with  ourselves  with  severity,  noting  the  first  incur¬ 
sions  of  sloth  and  self-indulgence.  We  perhaps 
sometimes  say  to  ourselves  that  this  perpetual 
struggle  to  maintain  the  brightness  of  our  spiritual 
(20) 


2go 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


life,  this  constant  exertion  against  the  inroad  of  the 
tempting  world,  is  disheartening :  we  need,  at  least, 
times  of  distraction  and  rest.  But  if  we  have 
seriously  entered  upon  the  spiritual  life  as  the  train¬ 
ing  of  the  spiritual  man  in  Christ  Jesus,  that  can  only 
be  a  passing  mood.  The  work  of  evolution  is  un¬ 
ceasing;  and  when  the  spiritual  creature  ceases  to 
advance  it  begins  to  degenerate.  Struggle  is  the 
{evidence  of  persistent  life ;  and  what  we  need  to 
find  in  ourselves  is  the  evidence  of  that  life  seek¬ 
ing  its  due  expression,  of  which  the  sense  of 
struggle  is  symptomatic.  For  remember  the  re¬ 
currence  of  a  clouded  condition  of  soul  does  not 
imply  any  weakening  of  the  power  of  God,  any 
withdrawal  of  the  divine  presence.  This  morning, 
as  I  write,  the  triumphant  August  sun  is  pouring 
its  streams  of  heat  and  light  and  energy  upon  the 
world,  and  the  streets  throb  with  the  intense  heat 
and  the  lake  quivers  and  sparkles  as  myriads  of 
silver  stars  dance  on  the  pale  blue  of  its  surface. 
This  afternoon  all  may  be  changed ;  clouds  may 
cover  the  face  of  the  sky  and  the  streets  be  gray 
and  the  lake  a  sheet  of  sombre  lead.  It  will  seem 
as  though  the  power  of  the  sun  were  lessened; 
but  is  not ;  that  is  only  a  seeming.  So  the  clouds 
may  cover  the  sky  of  our  lives,  clouds  that  rise 
out  of  our  passions,  our  weaknesses,  our  pride  or 
sloth.  And  we,  not  paying  much  heed  to  the  clouds 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD  291. 

at  their  coming,  but  thinking  of  our  own  symptoms^ 
say  that  the  power  of  Christ  is  growing  less  in  our 
lives.  But  the  real  power  of  Christ  is  not  lessened. 
It  shines  on  there  behind  the  clouds.  What  the 
clouds  do  is  to  hinder  its  activity  on  us,  they  ob¬ 
struct  the  rays.  The  failure  is  our  failure  of  re¬ 
sponse,  due  to  the  distraction  and  dissipation  of 
our  energies.  Dispel  the  clouds  by  energetic  ac¬ 
tion  and  you  will  find  Christ  what  he  always  has 
been,  the  infinite  source  of  energy. 

As  we  turn  from  our  personal  struggles  for  the 
perfecting  of  our  spiritual  lives  that  the  power  of 
our  union  with  our  Lord  may  more  and  more  per¬ 
vade  us,  to  consider  those  lives  as  merged  in  and 
become  part  of  the  general  life  of  the  Church,  we 
understand  that  the  presence  of  the  Living  Christ 
at  the  Right  Hand  of  the  Father  is  the  earnest  and 
pledge  of  the  final  success  of  the  Church.  How¬ 
ever  its  fortunes  may  seem  clouded  its  essential 
life  is  secure  and  its  future  will  manifest  the  per¬ 
fect  expression  of  that  life.  The  power  by  which 
it  lives  is  not  the  slowly  exhausted  power  which  we 
find  behind  purely  human  movements,  that  run 
their  course  and  die  because  of  the  finitude  of  the 
energy  that  generated  and  supports  them.  The  life 
of  the  Church  is  the  life  of  its  Risen  Head.  The 
Church  is  at  any  time  an  imperfect  expression  of 
that  life — sometimes  its  expression  of  it  seems  al- 


292 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


most  to  fail.  But  the  Church  is  always  capable  of 
revival  because  it  is  capable  of  drinking  anew  from 
the  infinite  fountain  of  its  life.  Human  life  organ¬ 
ized  in  societies  runs  its  course  and  exhausts  itself 
in  special  social  forms,  and  then  new  forms  have 
to  be  created,  through  revolution  or  otherwise.  The 
destruction  of  the  one  form  is  the  birth-throes  of 
the  next.  But  there  is  endless  vitality  in  the  Body 
of  Christ.  Empires  rise  and  fall ;  nations  grow  and 
perish;  and  they  will  continue  so  to  do.  But  the 
Church  remains,  remains  organically  one,  through 
its  union  with  its  Risen  Master,  though  to  our  weak 
vision  it  is  shattered  and  ready  to  perish.  Nations 
pass  and  languages  become  dead,  but  whatever  the 
nation  or  language  there  is  always  the  priest  who 
offers  the  holy  sacrifice  and  distributes  the  Angelic 
Food.  Sciences  and  philosophies,  the  human  ways 
of  looking  at  the  universe,  change  from  generation 
to  generation,  and  present  new  formulas;  but  the 
priest  at  the  altar  continues  and  will  continue,  till 
the  last  hour  strikes,  to  say,  “I  believe  in  God.”  You 
cannot  kill  Christianity  because  you  cannot  kill 
Christ.  He  has  passed  beyond  the  reach  of  death, 
and  “behold  he  is  alive  forever  more.”  Alive:  and 
on  the  other  side  of  death.  “I  am  he  that  liveth 
and  was  dead.” 

Christianity  is  the  life  of  Christ  in  human  souls 
knitting  those  souls  into  union  with  himself.  You 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD  293 

can  kill  the  life  of  this  or  that  soul ;  you  can  destroy 
the  religion  of  this  or  that  nation;  as  you  can  kill 
this  or  that  tree  in  the  forest  or  strip  the  whole 
hillside  bare ;  but  when  spring  comes,  nature,  that  is 
God,  will  clothe  the  hillside  with  a  new  life,  which 
yet  is  not  new,  but  a  new  manifestation  of  the  one 
Life  that  is  always  in  the  world.  You  cannot  kill 
Christianity  because  it  is  the  self-expression  of  God. 
Atheists  are  of  artificial  manufacture  and  have  no 
power  of  self-transmission.  We  need  never  fear  for 
the  life  of  the  Church,  but  only  for  our  fidelity  in 
the  manifestation  of  it. 

The  self-expression  of  our  Lord  in  the  life  of  the 
universe  takes  many  forms.  The  Church  which,  is 
his  Body  is  the  most  complete  of  these.  But  where- 
ever  there  is  truth,  or  beauty,  or  goodness,  these 
must  be  referred  to  the  action  of  his  Spirit — that  di¬ 
vine  Spirit  that  proceedeth  from  the  Father  and 
from  him.  We  cannot  afford  to  be  negligent  of 
these  forms  of  his  self-expression.  I  want,  for  a 
moment,  to  dwell  upon  these  because  I  have  before 
this  spoken  of  them  from  the  point  of  view  of  their 
imperfections  and  weaknesses.  I  would  not,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  have  anything  that  I  have  said  in  regard  to 
philanthropy  and  the  service  of  society  be  under¬ 
stood  in  depreciation  of  such  forms  of  human  ac¬ 
tivity.  I  am  very  clear  that  as  substitutes  for  the 
religion  of  Christ,  as  forms  of  activity  proposed  as 


2  94 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


containing  all  that  is  essential  in  Christianity  and  as 
the  probable  successors  of  “The  dying  Church, ” 
they  necessarily  arouse  Christian  opposition.  But 
such  presentation  of  them  is  quite  needless,  it  ought 
to  be  possible  to  carry  on  works  for  the  social  bet¬ 
terment  of  man,  without  at  the  same  time  making 
loud  boasting  of  their  superiority  to  Christianity 
and  depreciatory  remarks  about  “The  Churches/* 
It  is  one  of  the  discouraging  notes  of  the  little¬ 
ness  and  infirmity  of  human  nature  that  it  seems 
incapable  of  undertaking  any  work  without  a  sense 
of  superiority  and  vain-glory,  which  arouse  quite 
unnecessary  antagonism.  The  impulse  to  philan¬ 
thropy  and  social  service  ought  to  be  generated,  and 
is  generated,  wherever  the  Spirit  of  Christ  works. 
It  has  always  been  generated  within  the  Christian 
Church,  as  witness,  to  touch  only  one  feature  of  its 
action,  the  numberless  institutions  of  beneficence 
with  which  it  has  covered  the  face  of  the  Christian 
world.  And  this  same  Spirit  which  has  inspired 
the  humanitarian  action  of  the  Church,  is  visible 
in  humantarian  action  everywhere,  even  where  it 
pointedly  detaches  itself  from  the  Church.  But  it 
is  no  less  the  Spirit  of  Christ  that  is  working  and  it 
is  no  less  the  Spirit  of  Christ  that  works  in  nations 
which  have  never  heard  of  him.  Let  us  be  glad 
when  we  find  evidences  of  that  Spirit  among  Japan¬ 
ese  and  Mohammedans.  Let  us  welcome  it  among 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD  295 

non-sectarian  groups  and  ethical  culture  societies. 
We  constantly  meet  men  and  women  who  have 
abandoned  what  they  regard  as  the  narrowness  of 
“theological  systems”  to  give  themselves  utterly  to 
good  works.  Let  us  dwell,  not  on  what  we  are 
obliged  to  think  their  mistakenness,  but  upon  the 
Spirit  of  the  master  which  finds  so  much  response 
in  their  lives.  Oftentimes  they  afford  us  an  object 
lesson  of  single  heartedness  and  zeal  and  sacrifice 
which  we  would  do  well  to  lay  to  heart.  If  we  are 
unable  to  go  all  the  way  with  them  in  theory,  we 
can  at  least  sympathise  with  them  in  practice,  and 
feel  that  they,  too,  have  their  mission — a  mission 
of  carrying  the  Spirit  of  Christ  to  places  and  to 
souls  that  we  have  been  unable  to  reach.  It  is  to 
our  shame  that  we  have  not  done  so.  Let  us  not 
look  with  disfavor  on  those  who  are  doing  what  we 
have  left  undone.  The  spirit  that  seeks  to  aid  any 
of  Christ’s  little  ones  who  are  hard-pressed  and 
buffeted  in  the  battle  of  life,  is  altogether  admir¬ 
able  and  altogether  his,  even  when  mistaking  him 
and  its  own  origin  it  seeks  to  show  its  own  in¬ 
dependence  of  him. 

So  it  is  in  the  ways  of  thought.  We  should  wel¬ 
come  all  honest  attempts  to  solve  the  problems 
which  human  life  presents.  We  who  are  Christians 
and  adhere  to  the  dogmatic  system  of  the  Church 
are  ever  too  ready  to  denounce  those  who  are  seek- 


296  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

ing  truth  on  other  lines  and  by  other  means.  We 
are  apt  to  assume  that  our  interpretation  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  and  Christianity  are  necessarily  coincident. 
What  we  believe  about  the  Bible  is  too  often  in 
our  thought  the  same  thing  as  the  meaning  of  God 
in  Holy  Scripture.  We  therefore  look  with  suspicion 
upon  the  devoted  scholars  who  have  reached  con¬ 
clusions  in  the  matter  of  Biblical  learning  which  are 
not  what  we  have  been  accustomed  to  believe.  They 
may  indeed  be  mistaken,  but  so  may  we.  There  are 
a  great  many  questions  that  we  may  ask  to  which 
there  are  no  answers.  Possibly  answers  may  be 
found  for  them  some  day,  or  perhaps  not;  but  in 
the  meantime,  it  is  well  to  wait  patiently,  with  an 
open  mind.  It  is  well  to  remember  too,  that  the 
confidence  with  which  critics  and  specialists  put 
forward  conclusions  is  no  measure  of  their  truth. 
Immature  and  unpracticed  minds  are  thrown  into 
a  state  of  unrest  when  they  find  that  the  universe 
is  larger  than  our  knowledge  of  it.  This  is  especi¬ 
ally  true  when  they  find  that  the  Church  has  no 
ready-made  answers  for  all  the  new  problems  which 
emerge  as  the  result  of  man’s  persistent  questioning 
of  the  world  and  life.  If  the  Church  is  the  Custo¬ 
dian  of  revealed  truth  and  has  authority  to  declare 
it,  then,  such  seems  to  be  their  inference,  it  ought 
to  put  an  end  to  intellectual  unrest,  at  least  within 
its  own  borders.  If  there  emerge  differences  of 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD 


297 


opinion  in  matters  of  belief  and  practice  within 
the  Church,  the  Church  ought  to  settle  the  ques¬ 
tions  at  once,  by  the  voice  of  authority.  But  the 
authority  of  the  Church  is  authority  to  declare 
and  teach  the  faith,  which  it  sufficiently  does 
through  its  creeds  and  liturgy.  The  faith  that  it 
declares  and  teaches  is  the  faith  committed  to  it. 
It  has  no  power  or  commission  to  go  beyond  that 
either  in  making  new  articles  of  faith  or  develop¬ 
ing  new  dogmas  from  theological  germs.  The  au¬ 
thority  of  the  Church  is  not  at  all  like  the  heathen 
oracles  which  provided  answers  for  perplexed 
questioners  on  all  matters  under  the  sun.  The  fas¬ 
cination  that  the  Roman  Church  exercises  over 
many  minds  lies  in  its  pretensions  to  possess  this 
oracular  power.  Of  course  controversies  are  not, 
and  cannot  be,  settled  by  any  such  short  and  easy 
method.  It  is  possible  for  ecclesiastical  authority 
to  suppress  discussion  within  the  limits  of  its  own 
jurisdiction,  but,  even  so,  nothing  is  really  settled, 
and  the  pursuit  of  truth  goes  on  until  conclusions 
are  reached  or  the  search  abandoned  as  hopeless. 
The  authority  of  the  Church  is  not  to  declare  all 
truth,  but  authority  to  teach  that  special  body  of 
truth  which  is  contained  in  the  Christian  revelation. 

When  it  is  objected  to  the  Anglican  church  that 
it  lacks  authority,  there  is  a  confusion  in  the  mind 
of  the  objector  as  to  the  meaning  of  authority. 


*98  THE  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

The  Anglican  church  has  and  has  exercised  the 
authority  which  properly  belongs  to  the  Church  in 
setting  forth  clearly  and  definitely  the  Christian 
revelation  in  its  creeds  and  formulas  of  worship. 
This  is  a  proper  exercise  of  authority ;  and,  inas¬ 
much  as  it  does  not  claim  to  be  the  whole  Church, 
it  does  not  attempt  to  exercise  that  authority  to 
formulate  credal  statements  which  it  belongs  only 
to  the  whole  church,  assembled  in  general 
council,  to  formulate.  Neither  does  it  feel 
under  obligation  to  accept  such  statements 
when  formulated  by  any  other  part  of  the 
Church.  There  is  indeed  no  evidence  that  the  faith 

of  the  Church  needs  any  further  developed  state- 

% 

ment  than  it  has  received.  The  faith  Christendom 
has  lived  by  from  the  earliest  times  is  adequate  to 
the  needs  of  our  time.  There  would  seem  to  be  no 
ground  for  the  Church  to  abandon  its  conception 
of  its  obligation  to  teach  the  faith  committed  to  it, 
and  embark  on  a  career  of  question-answering  for 
the  sake  of  relieving  its  children  from  the  difficulty 
of  making  up  their  own  minds,  or  in  the  vain  hope 
that  it  will  thereby  still  controversies.  But  what  is, 
in  fact,  meant  when  the  lack  of  authority  of  the 
Anglican  Church  is  spoken  of,  is  not  this  authority 
to  state  the  faith,  but  something  quite  other:  that 
is,  its  failure  to  enforce  dicipline  to  the  extent  that 
critics  think  desirable.  “You  can  never  be  certain 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD  299 

that  the  teaching  of  any  two  Anglican  parishes  will 
be  alike.’’ 

It  can,  of  course,  be  truly  answered  that  in  all 
Anglican  churches  the  same  faith  is  taught — taught 
authoritatively  by  the  creeds  and  liturgy.  This 
teaching  is  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  and  it  is  well 
to  stress  that  point.  It  removes  the  reproach  that 
the  Church  teaches  error.  What,  however,  is  in  the 
objector’s  mind  is  that  the  Church  tolerates  teach¬ 
ing  in  the  pulpit  that  is  contrary  to  its  own  teach¬ 
ing  in  its  formularies;  in  other  words,  it  does  not 
enforce  discipline.  That,  no  doubt,  is  perfectly  true. 
But  it  is  not  self-evident,  as  the  objector  seems  to 
think  it  is,  that  rigid  enforcement  of  discipline  is 
the  mark  of  a  standing  or  falling  Church.  The  ill 
results  that  follow  laxity  of  discipline  are  sufficiently 
evident.  They  produce,  no  doubt,  much  perplexity 
an  the  minds  of  people  who  put  all  truths  on  the  same 
plane,  and  are  unable  to  distinguish  between  what 
belongs  to  the  Catholic  faith  and  what  does  not; 
and  are  unable  to  distinguish  between  the  teach¬ 
ings  of  the  Church  and  the  opinions  of  an  individual. 
But  are  the  evils  greater  than  those  that  result  from 
such  rigidity  of  discipline  as  prevents  men  from 
thinking  at  all,  or  daring  to  say  what  they  think; 
and  unfits  them  to  deal  with  the  new  problems  of  life 
and  thought  which  are  continually  arising?  Al¬ 
though  at  times  we  may  be  vexed  or  disheartened 


JOO 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


or  ashamed  by  the  unrebuked  utterances  of  some 
member  of  the  Anglican  communion;  though  at 
times  we  may  find  very  practical  difficulties  arise 
from  the  existence  of  widely  diverging  opinions, 
yet  we  are  infinitely  better  so,  than  reduced  to  a 
dead  level  of  thoughtless  uniformity.  After  all, 
differences  which  are  felt  to  be  important  are  the 
evidence  of  interest  and  life.  The  conviction  that  it 
has  got  hold  of  an  important  truth,  has  the  effect, 
it  would  seem,  of  injecting  into  the  human  system 
a  stimulant  that  arouses  the  spirit  of  combativeness ; 
we  could  desire  that  it  would  rather  arouse  the 
spirit  of  charity;  but  as  human  nature  is,  so  must 
we  take  it. 

And  we  have  this  truth  for  our  comfort:  that 
the  Christian  Church  is  not  a  human  debating  so¬ 
ciety  working  to  its  own  ends,  but  the  manifestation 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  Its  Living  Head 
is  presiding  over  its  fortunes  and  his  Spirit  is  guid¬ 
ing  it  to  its  consummation.  We  have  long  ago  got 
rid  of  the  notion  that  what  God  works  through 
must  be  perfect,  or  that  what  he  creates  must  be 
without  blot.  Flawlessness  and  stainlessness  are 
attributes  of  the  finished  work,  not  of  the  work  in 
its  formative  state.  We  have  only  to  read  over 
these  Epistles  of  the  Ascended  Christ — he  that  is 
living  after  death — to  understand  how  his  work 
goes  on  under  the  conditions  of  human  imperfec- 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD 


301 


tions.  It  is  as  true  as  it  is  trite  to  say,  that  it  is 
just  because  of  our  imperfections  that  the  work 
of  the  Incarnation  exists.  The  imperfections  in  the 
working  of  a  system  are  no  ground  for  doubt  of 
its  truth.  In  the  matter  of  imperfection  the  di¬ 
visions  of  Christendom  are  not  well  occupied  in 
throwing  stones  at  one  another.  We  are  much 
better  occupied  in  working  diligently  under  the  con¬ 
ditions  in  which  we  find  ourselves  in  the  hope  that 
fidelity  to  the  truth  we  see  will  result  in  a  large 
measure  of  revelation;  and  that  honest  work  for 
God’s  kingdom  will  hasten  the  time  when  it  shall 
finally  come.  That  coming  will  not  be  hastened 
by  those  who  seek  through  emphasis  on  our  di¬ 
vision  to  stir  up  strife.  It  will  not  be  hastened 
by  those  who  pretend  that  divisions  are  of  no  im¬ 
portance.  But  it  will  be  hastened  by  those  who, 
feeling  with  intensity  the  importance  of  truth  and 
the  beauty  of  charity,  seek  to  hold  the  one  in  the 
bonds  of  the  other. 

In  spite  of  our  divisions,  our  narrowness,  our 
lack  of  charity,  our  anxiety  for  the  triumph  of  our 
opinions  rather  than  truth,  we  are  members  of 
God’s  Church  and  witnesses  of  his  working.  He 
who  so  over-ruled  the  bitter  divisions  of  the  early 
Church  so  as  to  make  it  the  instrument  of  the  set¬ 
ting  forth  of  his  revelations  and  the  conversion  of 
Europe,  can  still  work  through  us  and  our  divisions 


30 a  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

to  a  further  advance  in  his  kingdom.  He  is  doing 
so  in  the  notable  conquests  in  the  mission  field. 
Perhaps  it  is  by  the  new  churches  of  the  mission 
field  that  many  of  the  problems  that  we  have  not 
been  able  to  solve  will  gain  their  solution.  The  new 
Christians  of  China  and  Japan  and  India  will  surely 
not,  with  Christianity,  take  over  the  teasing  ec¬ 
clesiastical  problems  in  which  we  have  entangled 
ourselves.  They  can  hardly  be  expected  to  spend 
much  time  or  energy  upon  the  opinions  of  Cranmer 
or  the  Caroline  divines.  Our  not  very  dignified 
squabbles  about  the  “change  of  name”  can  hardly 
interest  them.  The  field  is  free  for  them  to  accept 
the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints  as  it  was  de¬ 
livered,  and  not  as  it  has  been  obscured  by  the  con¬ 
troversies  of  the  Reformation  period,  which  have 
gone  very  dead — only  that  we  find  their  ghosts 
still  haunt  us.  They  do  not  have  to  take  up  the 
battle-cries  of  present  parties,  and  insist  on  the 
maintenance  of  now  meaningless  names,  out  of 
loyalty  to  their  grandfathers.  Christianity,  in  its 
march  from  West  to  East,  can  well  leave  behind 
much  of  the  baggage  it  has  accumulated  from  hu¬ 
man  sources.  If  the  Reformation  was  the  washing  of 
the  face  of  the  Church,  it  has  accumulated  dust 
and  grime  enough  in  the  centuries  since  to  justify 
another  lustration.  Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to 
hope,  remembering  who  is  the  true  Ruler  of  the 


I  AM  HE  THAT  LIVETH  AND  WAS  DEAD 


303 


fortunes  of  the  kingdom,  that  there  will  come  a 
day  when  Peter  will  be  converted,  and  set  himself 
to  strengthening  his  brethren,  in  place  of  abusing 
and  harrowing  them.  It  is  well  to  stay  ourselves, 
at  any  rate,  with  such  hope;  and  cultivate  a  vision 
that  can  penetrate  beyond  the  smoke  of  our  con¬ 
flicts,  which  tend  to  obscure  the  universe  for  us, 
to  the  serene  life  where  the  Head  of  the  Church  is 
enthroned  in  the  power  of  his  Risen  Life  at  the 
Right  Hand  of  the  Father.  No  doubt  the  time 
seems  long,  and  we  weary  of  the  continual  shouting, 
‘‘I  am  of  Paul;  and  I  of  Apollos;  and  I  of  Cephas; 
and  I  of  Christ.’’  We  grow  faint  while  the  di¬ 
visions  of  Christendom  glory  in  men  and  in  eccles¬ 
iastical  systems.  But  the  words  of  the  same  Apostle 
who  first  was  made  sick  with  this  human  pettiness 
comfort  us  as  they  did  his  loyal  followers :  “L  et 
no  man  glory  in  men.  For  all  things  are  yours: 
whether  Paul,  or  Apollos,  or  Cephas,  or  the  world, 
or  life  or  death,  or  things  present,  or  things  to 
come :  all  are  yours ;  and  you  are  Christ’s ;  and 
Christ  is  God’s.’’ 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA. 


Let  us  listen  to  the  words  of  our  Lord — 
I  am  Alpha  and  Omega. 


And ,  let  us  picture — 


B COMMON  scene.  It  is  a  bed-room  that  we 
are  looking  at ;  and  on  the  bed  there  is  lying 
a  mother  clasping  to  her  breast  her  first¬ 
born  child.  How  she  has  dreamed  over  this  coming 
child  in  the  months  that  have  passed.  With  what 
care  she  has  prepared  for  its  coming;  and  now,  the 
hour  of  her  anguish  passed,  she  rejoices  that  a  man 
is  born  into  the  world.  See  the  love-light  in  her 
eyes;  see  her  delight  in  every  movement  of  the 
child.  This  thing,  which  has  happened  to  every 
mother  for  unnumbered  centuries,  is  to  her  a  new 
miracle.  If  we  could  see  into  her  soul,  what  dreams 
and  hopes  and  plans  we  should  see  there;  how  she 

S05 

(21) 


306  the  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

looks  out  into  the  future  and  sees  this  child  growing 
true  and  brave  and  pure  answering  to  all  her  ideals 
of  manliness.  Sometimes,  too,  we  should  see  fears 
there — fears  lest  she  should  be  unequal  to  the  task 
before  her,  fear  lest  the  malign  forces  of  life 
should  lay  hold  of  and  ruin  her  child.  As  we  watch 
her  with  this  being,  all-unconscious  of  its  future, 
lying  on  her  breast,  we  wonder,  not  only  what  the 
future  is  to  be,  but  what  is  the  kind  of  love  that  is 
going  to  play  so  great  a  part  in  the  shaping  of  that 
future.  Is  it  the  passion  of  a  personal  possession, 
or  the  awe  of  a  great  trust.  Is  she  quite  sure  that 
God  has  trusted  her  with  a  life  that  is  immortal  to 
be  trained  for  him?  Are  the  visions  that  fill  her 
mind,  visions  of  a  life  that  finds  its  meaning  onJy 
when  at  length  it  shall  walk,  white-robed,  by  the 
side  of  the  river  of  the  water  of  life,  clear  as  crys- 
tal,  proceeding  out  of  the  throne  of  God  and  of 
the  Lamb? 

Consider }  first — 

That  a  child  is  an  immortal  being  whose  eternal 
destinies  are  being  shaped  by  the  influences  that  are 
brought  to  bear  on  it  during  the  time  of  its  living 
here.  This  child  has  been  fashioned  under  the 
laws  of  God,  that  we  commonly  call  the  laws  of 
nature.  It  comes  into  the  world  with  tendencies 
that  are  the  work  of  the  past,  tendencies  that,  with- 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA  307 

in  limits,  its  parents  have  had  under  their  control. 
They  have  transmitted  to  it  something  of  what  they 
themselves  are — their  health,  their  passions,  their 
good  and  evil.  They  know  from  their  own  lives 
the  elements  of  the  problem  that  they  have  to  deal 
with,  the  factors  that  need  to  be  eliminated,  the 
weaknesses  that  need  to  be  made  strong.  They 
are  not  entering  upon  the  task  of  this  child’s  nature 
in  blindness;  it  is  their  child,  to  be  trained  in  the 
light  of  its  heredity.  But  God  is  in  its  present. 
It  is  not  merely  the  resultant  of  forces  that  are  be¬ 
yond  control;  it  is  subject  to  forces  that  they  may 
themselves  control.  They  have  it  in  their  power  to 
select,  in  great  measure,  the  forces  and  influences 
that  shall  determine  the  child’s  future.  They  live 
in  a  spiritual  universe,  and  are  members  of  a  re¬ 
deemed  race.  They  have  the  revelation  of  the  will 
of  God.  God  has  placed  at  their  disposal  the  gifts 
and  graces  which  will  enable  them  to  bring  this 
child  up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord. 
In  the  light  of  their  knowledge  of  themselves  and  of 
God’s  will  they  may  mould  the  character  of  this 
child.  There  are,  no  doubt,  forces  beyond  their 
control,  but  they  are  not  beyond  the  control  of  God ; 
if  they  do  their  part  as  his  representatives.  Before 
the  child  passes  under  the  control  of  forces  that 
escape  them,  there  have  been  years  of  training  and 
discipline  which  must  leave  an  indelible  impress. 


$o8  THE  self-revelation  of  our  lord 
Consider,  second — 

What  this  impress  will  be  will  depend  on  their 
own  wisdom,  no  doubt;  but  will  depend  also,  in 
great  measure,  on  the  sort  of  belief  that  they  have 
in  God.  Is  God  Alpha  and  Omega  to  them,  the 
Beginning  and  the  End  ?  There  is  the  question  that 
is  before  all  things  critical.  Have  they  a  burning, 
energetic  faith  in  God  ?  It  is  one  thing  to  bring  up 
a  child  for  the  purposes  of  this  world,  and  a  quite 
different  thing  to  bring  it  up  as  one  whose  life  finds 
its  significance  in  its  eternal  relation  to  God.  In 
the  one  case  the  life  will  be  shaped  for  the  attain¬ 
ment  of  immediate  and  temporary  ends ;  in  the 
other  for  the  attainment  of  ends  that  can  only  be 
realized  in  another  life.  Though  the  things  to  be 
done  in  the  way  of  external  living  may  be  much  the 
same  in  both  cases,  the  emphasis  will  be  entirely 
different,  the  values  sought  through  activity  will 
be  unlike.  In  the  one  case  the  gifts  of  God  will  be 
valued  for  themselves,  in  the  other  they  will  be 
sought  as  instruments  of  ministry.  Think  of  your¬ 
self  as  that  child,  now  grown  and  come  to  the 
fruition  of  life.  What  does  the  life  that  you  are 
leading  mean  to  you?  Is  it  a  life  of  which  God  is 
the  beginning,  the  middle  and  the  end?  Is  God 
Alpha  and  Omega?  Have  you  a  living  experience 
of  him  as  the  Lord  from  whom  your  life  proceeds. 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA  309 

and  toward  whom  it  is  tending?  Is  your  life  select¬ 
ed,  as  to  its  elements,  with  reference  to  its  final 
realization  as  a  life  of  another  world,  where  God 
shall  be  all  in  all?  If  God  is  not  the  Alpha,  the 
ground  of  our  lives  here,  he  will  not  be  the  Omega, 
the  consummation  of  our  lives  hereafter.  All  our 
Lord’s  will  for  us  has  reference  to  this,  that  we 
should  so  live  his  life  here  that  we  may  live  with 
him  in  the  future.  On  his  throne  in  heaven  he  is 
waiting  to  receive  us. 

Let  us,  then,  pray — 

That  our  lives  may  be  rooted  and  grounded  in 
him.  Let  us  pray  that  we  may  hold  the  things  of 
this  life  at  their  true  valuation,  as  means  of  our 
development  into  his  likeness. 

O  God,  who  hast  prepared  for  those  who  love 
thee  such  good  things  as  pass  man’s  understanding  ; 
Pour  into  our  hearts  such  love  towards  thee,  that 
we,  loving  thee  above  all  things,  may  obtain  thy 
promises,  which  exceed  all  that  we  can  desire; 
through  Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord. 

Our  spiritual  life  is  established  in  the  possession 
of  God.  It  is  consummated  in  the  enjoyment  of  God 
When  our  Lord  says  that  he  is  Alpha  and  Omega 
he  is  attributing  to  himself  the  title  which  is  the 
proper  possession  of  God — he  is  declaring  his  own 


3IQ 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


divinity.  And  as  he  is  Alpha  and  Omega  to  us 
his  assertion  of  divinity  becomes  the  assurance  of 
our  spiritual  stability. 

This  title  of  our  Lord  is  accompanied  by  the  ex¬ 
planation  :  “which  is,  and  which  was,  and  which  is 
to  be.”  It  is  this  that  is  d£clared  of  our  Lord  else¬ 
where:  “Jesus  Christ,  the  same  yesterday,  to-day 
and  forever.”  The  promises  on  which  faith  and 
hope  rest  are  guaranteed  by  his  unchangeableness. 

He  is  he  which  was.  In  the  background  of  hu¬ 
man  history  there  has  been  a  divine  purpose  work¬ 
ing  toward  its  end  in  the  redemption  of  the  race. 
Human  life  has  not  been  a  meaningless  drift  out 
of  nothingness  into  nothingness ;  there  has  been  pur¬ 
pose  from  the  beginning.  If  we  try  to  trace  the 
wanderings  of  humanity  through  the  wilderness  of 
this  world  it  is  a  strangely  broken  and  twisted  path 
that  we  have  to  follow.  The  evolution  of  the  spirit¬ 
ual  man  is  not  a  straight  and  easy  march  along  the 
King’s  highway  from  the  city  of  this  world  to  the 
city  of  God.  There  are  twists  and  turns,  advances 
and  retreats,  recoveries  and  relapses.  But  the  thing 
that  on  the  whole  has  emerged  from  age  to  age  is 
an  advance  in  spiritual  capacity  and  interest — a  di¬ 
rection  of  the  whole  process  forward.  That,  most 
likely,  would  seem  a  saying  hard  to  justify,  to  many 
observers  of  our  time.  Our  own  time,  they  will 
tell  us,  whatever  its  greatness  in  certain  respects, 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA  311 

can  hardly  be  said  to  show  any  marked  advance  in 
spirituality.  But  one  is  apt  to  be  led  into  a  pessi¬ 
mistic  observation  of  our  own  time  because  of  cer¬ 
tain  superficial  indications  which  fill  up  the  fore¬ 
ground  of  vision.  There  is  no  doubt  much  to  dis¬ 
hearten.  I  have  perhaps  dwelt  sufficiently,  in  the 
preceding  meditations,  upon  such  disheartening 
features  of  our  time  to  make  it  clear  that  I  do  not 
overlook  them.  Frivolity,  worldliness,  the  lust  of 
amusement,  indifference  to  the  deeper  issues  of  life, 
alienation  from  religion,  the  assertion  of  a  false 
freedom — all  these  and  more  are  on  the  surface  of 
things,  and  are  abundantly  discouraging.  But  in 
fact  they  are  the  ever-present  phenomena  of  man’s 
littleness,  visible  in  all  times  and  places  of  his 
history.  The  restless  spirit  of  man  beating  against 
the  limitations  that  are  imposed  upon  it  by  circum¬ 
stances  and  striving  to  escape  them  generates  the 
phenomena  of  lawlessness  and  self-asserting  pride 
which  is  its  form  of  protest  against  the  restraints 
it  cannot  escape.  The  imprisoned  sea,  whipped  by 
the  wind,  dashes  itself  to  foam  against  the  unyield¬ 
ing  rocks.  And  the  lawless  and  reckless  dissipa¬ 
tions  of  human  beings  are  as  the  foam  of  life 
whipped  by  desires  it  has  not  learned  to  control. 
We  are  like  children,  set  to  learning  lessons,  who 
rebelliously  waste  their  time  in  throwing  their  books 


3f2 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


about.  But  this  is  no  new  thing — it  is  as  old  as 
the  world. 

More  seriously,  our  troubles  are  the  result  of  an 
achieved  liberty  that  we  have  not  yet  learned  to  use. 
It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  profound  dislocation 
and  unsettlement  which  has  resulted  from  the 
triumph  of  a  democratic  ideal.  We  have  been  made 
free  with  a  freedom  which  we  do  not  understand 
and  are  as  yet  unable  effectively  to  use.  The  dis¬ 
appearance  of  external  authority  has  not  been  fol¬ 
lowed  by  the  emergence  of  any  authoritative  prin¬ 
ciple  as  the  ruling  power  in  life.  Freedom  still  re¬ 
mains  for  us,  license,  and  the  supremacy  of  our 
own  wills.  As  a  whole  we  have  been  engaged  this 
century  or  more  in  the  attempt  to  impose  our  own 
will  on  others  in  the  name  of  freedom.  Authority 
is  the  imposition  of  an  external  will  as  a  limit  and 
guide  to  our  action.  It  was  no  right  reading  of 
freedom  which  substituted  for  ancient  forms  of  au¬ 
thority,  the  authority  of  a  majority.  True  freedom 
means  the  imposition  of  limitation  upon  our  own 
will  for  the  good  of  the  whole.  It  means  sacrifice 
of  self  to  the  highest  principle  we  can  find.  In  the 
present  clash  of  the  wills  of  parties  and  classes, 
striving  by  any  means  to  gain  their  own  ends, 
whatever  else  we  have  we  have  not  freedom  in  any 
real  understanding  of  it.  Our  democracy  is  at 
present  generating  and  upholding  what  would  seem 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA 


313 


to  be  the  worst  tyranny  yet  seen — the  tyranny  of  or¬ 
ganized  groups  and  interests  bent  upon  the  exploita¬ 
tion  of  the  community  in  favor  of  their  own  per¬ 
sonal  gain.  It  is  difficult  to  see  that  we  have  made 
any  advance  in  the  exchange  of  former  tyrannies 
for  the  present  ones,  whether  they  be  political  or 
industrial. 

But  there  begin  to  emerge  hopeful  factors  in  the 
situation,  which  would  seem  to  indicate  that  pro¬ 
gress  is  not  merely  our  optimistic  human  way  of 
conceiving  things,  but  a  real  advance.  We  are  get¬ 
ting  rid  of  the  cock-sureness  which  has  been  so 
characteristic  of  the  last  century.  We  are  less  ex¬ 
pectant  that  all  good  things  come  to  those  who  vote. 
Though  we  still  permit  the  formation  of  predatory 
groups,  organized  to  prey  upon  the  rest  of  the  so¬ 
ciety,  we  are  less  certain  that  they  represent  the  last 
words  of  economic  wisdom.  We  even  begin  to 
seek  for  means  by  which  they  can  be  controlled. 
We  are  not  so  sure  that  everything  that  is  woith 
doing,  can  be  done  by  money  and  machinery.  We 
are  getting  beyond  the  social  philosophy  which  re¬ 
gards  social  ills  as  things  that  “just  happen.”  and 
for  which  nobody  is  responsible,  and  are  growing  a 
conscience  which  is  markedly  uneasy.  To  be  sure 
our  present  analysis  of  the  causes  of  social  ills  does 
not  inspire  confidence;  but  that  we  have  begun  to 


314  the  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

suspect  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  social  responsi¬ 
bility  is  important. 

Moreover,  we  seem  to  have  outlived  materialism, 
as  a  philosophy  at  any  rate ;  and  are  coming  to  the 
conviction  that  the  foundations  of  life  are  spiritual. 
Mechanical  views  of  the  universe  are  giving  way 
to  spiritual  ones.  There  is  hope,  therefore,  that  we 
shall  before  long  recognize  the  power  of  spiritual 
motive  and  the  supremacy  of  spiritual  ideal. 
The  appeal  for  spiritual  activity  will  get 
listened  to ;  and  when  spiritual  appeal  can  gain 
attention  as  not  traversing  “the  common  sense  view 
of  life,”we  can  hope  for  a  programme  of  spiritual 
religion.  At  present,  no  doubt,  the  emphasis  is  still 
upon  an  unspiritual  religion — a  religion  which 
makes  only  such  demands  upon  life  as  can  be  met  by 
worldly  people  without  a  change  of  life.  I  listened 
not  long  ago  to  a  sermon  which  appeared  to  teach 
the  perfectness  of  our  present  industrial  system,  and 
left  on  one  the  impression  that  the  only  person 
whose  money-getting  could  be  held  blameable  was 
the  office  boy  who  robbed  his  employer’s  till.  The 
prosperous  gentlemen  in  the  pews  seemed  to  sit  up 
with  a  proper  sense  of  their  probity — but  on  the 
whole  the  sermon  had  an  archaic  sound,  even  to¬ 
day.  The  day  seems  coming  when  once  more  we 
can  feel  that  neither  circumcision  profiteth  anything 
nor  uncircumcision :  when  neither  capital  nor  labor, 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA 


3*5 


wealth  nor  poverty,  will  be  canonized:  but  the  life 
of  the  spirit,  possible  under  all  outward  conditions, 
will  be  valued  as  the  proper  aim  of  men.  Surely 
it  is  only  then  that  we  shall  attach  any  intelligible 
meaning  to  the  creation — when  we  read  the  purpose 
of  God  in  creating  man  as  the  purpose  of  lifting 
man  into  union  with  himself.  I  believe  that  there 
is  visible  a  distinct  advance  toward  an  appreciation 
of  spiritual  ideals  of  life,  and  that  in  that  advance 
we  can  see  the  accomplishment  of  the  purpose  of 
him  who  was,  and  still  is,  life’s  background. 

For  he  is  he  which  is.  And  whatever  our  failure 
to  acknowledge  him  and,  in  our  self-sufficiency, 
think  that  we  can  manage  our  own  life,  and  shape 
society  for  the  best,  he  is  still  energetic  in  the  affairs 
of  the  world.  “My  father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I 
work.”  The  purpose  of  God  in  bringing  all  things 
to  him  may  seem  frustrated  by  human  sin  and 
stupidity,  but  we  have  the  lesson  of  the  Cross  to 
teach  us  that  it  is  not  so.  That  Cross  surely  teaches 
that  the  self-will  and  sin  of  man  cannot  cancel  the 
purpose  of  God;  that  as  often  as  men  in  what  they 
deem  their  hour  of  triumph  have  raised  God  upon  a 
cross,  there  he  reigns;  that  is  a  sufficient  answer 
to  all  our  timorous  doubting  and  despair  of  the  city 
of  God.  God  reigns  from  the  Tree.  God  reigned 
in  the  city  of  Herod  and  Caiaphas  and  Pilate ;  and 
God  reigns  in  the  city  of  this  world  to-day.  None 


31 6  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

of  the  dark  things  that  happen  in  the  world  to-day 
can  shake  our  faith  in  that  fact.  Jesus  Christ  who 
was  crucified  on  Friday  walked  the  streets  of  Jeru¬ 
salem  on  Sunday  morning.  Let  the  outlook  in 
Church  and  state  be  as  bad  as  they  will,  they  will 
never  be  worse  than  they  were  when  the  Cross  was 
raised.  They  can  never  be  darker  than  they  were 
when  the  sun  set  on  that  first  Good  Friday.  When 
the  supernatural  darkness,  which  was  the  symbol  of 
the  earth’s  godlessness  wrapped  the  streets  of  Jeru¬ 
salem,  God  still  reigned.  We  need  waste  no  time 
in  lamentations  on  the  state  of  the  world ;  what  we 
have  to  fear  is  that  when  the  darkness  of  this  world 
passes  we  be  found  otherwhere  than  beside  the 
Cross  of  Christ.  We  need  to  fear  lest  we  despair 
of  his  cause,  and  go  back  to  our  homes,  thinking 
that  God  is  dead.  Your  place  and  mine  is  beside 
the  Cross  though  all,  even  the  disciples,  forsake 
him  and  flee.  There  is  a  divine  purpose  realizing 
itself  in  the  world,  and  we  must  be  found  on  the 
side  of  that  purpose :  we  must  be  found  going  after 
him,  bearing  whatever  crosses  it  is  his  will  that  we 
should  bear.  There  is  no  harder  or  heavier  Cross 
for  us  than  to  maintain  our  loyalty  in  a  society  that 
has  abandoned  God,  whether  it  is  the  abandonment 
of  open  revolt,  or  the  worse  abandonment  of  merely 
nominal  service.  It  is  not  so  hard  to  stand  in  the 
ranks  with  an  open  enemy  at  your  face,  as  it  is  to 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA 


3 1 7 


stand  there  with  the  consciousness  that  the  man  at 
your  side  may  be  but  half-hearted,  or  even  a  traitor. 
We  cannot  deny  that  there  is  a  strain  upon  us  to¬ 
day  “when  we  speak  with  our  enemies  in  the  gate” 
— the  strain  that  comes  from  not  knowing  whether 
they  are  faithful  who  stand  behind  us.  But  the 
Cross  that  we  bear  is  Christ’s  Cross,  and 
the  shadows  through  which  we  bear  it  will 
break,  and  the  dawn  of  Easter  will  come,  and 
we  who  have  gone  after  him  to  Calvary  shall  see 
him  once  more  in  the  power  of  his  Resurrection  and 
shall  watch  him  ascend  to  his  Father  and  ours,  and 
shall  be  lifted  with  him  to  his  unpassing  peace.  He 
which  is,  is  the  guarantee  of  our  triumph. 

For  he  is,  also,  he  which  is  to  be.  There  is  a  fu¬ 
ture  in  which  the  as  yet  unaccomplished  purpose  of 
God  will  gain  its  fulfillment.  We  do  not  look  back 
with  tear-filled  eyes  to  an  Eden  from  which  we 
have  been  banished,  but  onward  to  a  kingdom  yet 
in  its  fullness  to  be  revealed.  If  we  have  lived  the 
lives  of  Christians  we  have  lived  them  in  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  the  divine  guidance.  God  has  been 
with  us  and  we  know  it,  and  that  he  will  not  fail  us 
now.  When  his  full  purpose  is  unveiled — that 
purpose  which  now  in  dark  days  we  are  tempted 
to  despair  of,  we  shall  be  sharers  of  his  triumph. 
We  shall  stand  by  him  and  see  the  unfolding  glory 
of  God.  We  shall  be  citizens  of  a  new  heaven  and 


3  i  8  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness.  The 
spiritual  life  which  we  enter  upon  here  moves  for¬ 
ward  to  that  consummation.  It  began  here  with  the 
possession  of  God,  or,  perhaps  we  might  better  say, 
with  God’s  possession  of  us.  But  we  move  slowly 
to  the  perception  and  understanding  of  this  so  tre¬ 
mendous  fact. 

What  we  first  consiously  experience  is  not  God, 
but  the  gifts  of  God — the  bounty  of  his  Providence. 
As  soon  as  we  begin  to  distinguish  the  elements  of 
our  experience  and  seek  their  sense,  we  are  led  to 
assign  as  the  source  of  some  of  them  the  immediate 
action  of  God.  We  learn  to  listen  to  his  guiding 
voice  as  it  is  made  known  to  us  in  the  conscience, 
we  learn  to  look  for  his  guidance  in  the  events  of 
life.  We  find  his  goodness  active  in  our  life  from 
day  to  day.  How  many  things  there  are  over 
which  we  can  whisper,  “thank  God  for  that,”  if 
only  our  spiritual  sight  is  clear.  It  is  this  constant 
and  close  investigation  of  life  as  to  the  message  it 
bears  us  that  develops  spiritual  insight.  I  know 
that  it  can  be  said  that  this  is  merely  fanciful — that 
we  are  assigning  to  the  Providence  of  God  what  are 
merely  natural  events,  and  assuming  an  individual 
care  of  God  that  we  have  no  right  to  postulate.  You 
can  easily  take  that  view  of  life  which  ultimately 
rests  on  a  belief,  not  in  the  care,  but  the  careless¬ 
ness  of  God.  It  was  my  good  fortune,  or  it  befell 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA 


3*9 


me  in  the  Providence  of  God,  (you  may  read  as  you 
choose)  to  be  born  in  the  country  and  to  pass  my 
boyhood  in  the  open  air  of  wooded  hills.  Many  a 
time  since  I  have  taken  city-bred  boys  into  the 
country,  and  have  been  impressed  by  the  fact  that 
their  minds  are  an  entire  blank  to  all  things  of  the 
woods  and  fields.  There  was  hardly  a  tree  or 
flower  or  bird  or  beasts  that  they  could  identify. 
That  was  inevitable  when  one  came  to  think  of  it: 
but  it  seemed  almost  tragic.  And  yet  not  alto¬ 
gether  inevitable :  even  within  the  limitations  of  a 
city  life  there  are  trees  and  birds  and  flowers.  A 
beginning  of  experience  might  have  been  made, 
and  would  have  been,  but  for  a  lack  of  interest, 
but  for  a  mind  unawakened  to  certain  features  of 
the  environment.  Is  it  not  much  the  same  in  re¬ 
gard  to  the  spiritual  environment?  That  we  are 
not  conscious  of  certain  things  is  as  far  as  pos¬ 
sible  from  proving  that  they  are  not  present.  That 
we  do  not  see  any  Providence  of  God  in  our  lives 
does  not  mean  that  God  does  not  provide.  It  is 
altogether  a  matter  of  awakened  interest.  A  man 
without  interest  in  the  action  of  God  in  life,  and 
with  a  negative  experience,  is  not  a  witness  against 
the  truth  of  God’s  intervention  in  life — he 
simply  has  no  testimony  to  give.  He  is  not  a  man 
on  the  spot  who  did  not  see  what  is  alleged  to 
have  happened  there ;  he  is  a  man  who  was  else- 


32° 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


where  at  the  time  and  therefore  cannot  be  called 
as  witness. 

But  assuming  our  elementary  experience  of  the 
gifts  of  God,  the  danger  of  this  stage  of  spiritual 
development  is  lest  we  should  take  the  possession 
of  the  gifts  of  God  to  be  the  same  thing  as  the 
possession  of  God.  In  fact,  many  people  stop  at 
that  point.  The  very  fullness  of  their  lives  kills 
desire.  They  do  not  spiritually  develop  past  the 
point  where  they  recognize  the  good  Providence  of 
God  with  a  certain  measure  of  thankfulness.  The 
very  richness  of  God’s  Providence  acts  as  a  seda¬ 
tive  to  the  spiritual  powers.  There  is  the  beset¬ 
ting  danger  of  prosperity,  of  a  quiet  and  undis¬ 
turbed  life.  The  gifts  are  accepted  as  rewards 
instead  of  being  used  as  stimulants.  It  is  therefore 
sometimes  necessary  for  God  to  remove  the  gifts 
which,  so  far  from  raising  our  souls  to  seek  the 
Giver,  but  become  screens  to  hide  him.  There  has 
to  be  a  stripping  bare  of  the  life  that  it  may  per¬ 
ceive  God. 

Or  there  is  this  other  case:  We  may  confuse 
the  gifts  of  religion  with  religion  itself.  There 
are  people  in  whom  the  sensible  enjoyment  of 
religion  appears  to  take  the  place  of  spiritual  ex¬ 
perience.  They  are  dependent  upon  the  reaction  of 
religious  practices,  and  begin  to  be  weary  of  the 
practices,  or  to  doubt  their  validity,  when  the  sen- 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA 


321 


sible  reactions  cease  or  do  not  at  once  follow. 
Every  director  of  souls  is  familiar  with  people  who 
doubt  of  prayer  and  sacraments  because  they  ex¬ 
perience  no  feelings  in  connection  with  them.  They 
complain  that  they  do  them  no  good.  Or  one 
knows  people  whose  interest  in  religion  is  interest 
in  services  or  functions,  which  they  enjoy  im¬ 
mensely,  but  who  are  not  frequenters  of  the  sacra¬ 
ments.  But  all  those  things  are  gifts,  stepping 
stones  to  other  things,  invitations  to  go  on  and  find 
God.  The  sensible  reactions  of  religion,  the  joys 
and  consolations  that  we  experience  in  services 
and  prayers  and  sacraments,  are  still  only  the 
gifts  of  God,  the  effects  of  religion — they  are  not 
religion  itself.  They  will  cease  after  a  while,  and 
unless  we  have  found  God,  and  our  religion  is  the 
experience  of  God  himself,  the  religion  that  we 
thought  we  had  will  vanish  too. 

We  do  not  love  God  rightly  until  we  love  him  for 
himself  alone,  not  for  what  he  gives  us.  As  Mme. 
Guyon  points  out,  we  walk  by  faith,  not  by  sight; 
and  to  rely  on  sensible  emotion  is  still  to  walk  by 
sight.  I  repeat,  because  it  is  so  important;  many 
fail  here.  They  cannot  get  on  with  a  religion 
which  is  not  a  sensible  experience.  They  want  to 
feel  uplifted  in  prayer  and  meditation  and  sacra¬ 
ment.  When  the  feeling  is  withdrawn  they  think 
their  religion  is  gone  too ;  though  it  is  merely  that 
(22) 


322 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


God  is  calling  them  to  a  deeper  faith  in  himself. 
The  great  test  of  the  reality  of  our  spiritual  life 
is  to  be  found  in  what  we  can  do  without.  God 
has  not  then  left  the  soul  when  he  withdraws  the 
signs  of  his  presence  which  we  were  accustomed 
to  trust  to.  He  is  working  more  intimately  with  the 
soul,  he  is  asking  it  to  throw  away  its  crutches  and 
walk  unaided  by  anything  but  himself. 

Apply  the  same  test  another  way :  is  God  the 
first  interest  in  your  life — the  Alpha,  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  it?  There  are  many  grades  of  religion  in 
our  mixed  experience;  and  there  are  some  who 
think  they  are  religious  and  are  to  a  certain  point, 
in  whose  lives  God  is  not  the  supreme  interest. 
He  is  subordinated  to  something  else.  Take  what 
is  a  crucial  interest — the  human  affections.  What 
is  the  nature  of  the  love  that  we  bear  to  father  or 
mother,  husband  or  wife,  child  or  friend?  Have 
they  any  spiritual  quality?  How  far  do  they  enter 
within  the  control  of  our  religion  ?  How 
many  marriages  are  there  that  are  contracted 
from  a  spiritual  point  of  view,  or  are  spiritually 
controlled?  How  many  families  are  there  that 
are  envisaged  as  spiritual  entities?  Are  our  friend¬ 
ships  formed  with  a  view  to  the  spiritual  interests 
of  life,  and  continued  or  broken  as  they  minister 
to  them?  The  answers  to  these  questions  that 
arise  spontaneously  in  our  mind  no  doubt  tell  a 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA  323 

sad  story  in  very  many  instances.  The  disfavor 
with  which  the  Church  has  at  all  times  looked  upon 
mixed  marriages  has  not  been  because  of  a  human 
dread  of  losing  its  members,  but  because  to  its  il¬ 
luminated  vision  it  has  seemed  that  marriage  in 
which  the  deepest  human  interests  are  disregarded, 
in  which  there  is  no  sympathy  in  things  spiritual, 
was  likely  to  be  unstable.  Affections  which  are 
not  affections  in  God  are  badly  based.  They  rest 
upon  elements  in  character  and  experience  that 
are  shifting  and  uncertain.  There  would  be  fewer 
divorces  and  wrecked  families,  there  would  be 
fewer  spoiled  children  and  dangerous  friendships, 
if  Christian  men  and  women  insisted  upon  carry¬ 
ing  their  religion  into  all  their  lives  and  made  it  the 
foundation  of  all  their  actions.  But  our  religion  is 
so  distressingly  fragmentary — a  series  of  acts, 
rather  than  a  life  controlled  and  shaped  by  con¬ 
tinuous  motive;  the  possession  of  things,  rather 
than  the  possession  of  God. 

If  I  am  God’s,  all  that  I  possess  is  God’s — a 
consecrated  whole.  There  would  be  no  murmuring 
at  the  sacrifices  which  religion  demands  if  we  held 
all  that  we  have  at  the  disposal  of  God.  Great 
possessions  are  great  dangers,  because  they  push 
the  will  of  God  out  of  life.  They  tend  to  make 
those  who  have  them  the  patrons  of  God  and  his 
Church  rather  than  the  servants.  That  youngs 


324  the  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

man  in  the  Gospel  who  seems  forever  the  type  of 
those  who  have  great  possessions,  would  no  doubt 
have  been  willing,  as  someone  has  said,  to  finance 
the  Galilean  ministry ;  but  he  could  not  find  it  in 
his  heart  to  fall  in  behind  our  Lord  and  bear  the 
Cross.  Any  possessions,  not  great  ones  merely, 
tend  to  make  us  timid  in  God's  service.  We  at¬ 
tach  ourselves  to  the  gifts  of  God,  and  are  all  the 
time  fearful  lest  what  he  has  given  he  should  resume. 
Our  piteous  fear  of  the  hand  of  God  marks  our 
distance  from  loving  him  for  himself,  not  for  what 
he  gives,  marks  the  limit  for  our  thought  of  sacri¬ 
fice.  But  though  he  ask  all  we  have,  even  life 
itself,  it  is  the  asking  of  love.  If  we  believe  that 
God  is  love,  why  shrink  from  that  love? 

I  thought  the  road  would  be  hard  and  bare, 

But  lo !  flowers, 

Springing  flowers, 

Bright  flowers  blossoming  everywhere. 

The  night,  I  feared,  would  be  dark  and  drear, 

But  lo !  stars, 

Golden  stars, 

Glorious,  glowing  stars  are  here ! 

And  my  shrinking  heart,  set  free  from  dread, 

Sees  love — 

(Lo  !  it  is  love.) 

God’s  love  crowning  with  death  my  head. 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA  325 

♦ 

Our  Lord  is  the  end  of  life — the  Omega.  He  is 
the  end  in  this  sense,  that  in  him  is  revealed  what 
is  God’s  thought  of  us.  We  often  question  what 
is  God’s  mind  for  us ;  but  we  have  no  need  to  seek. 
Jesus  is  not  only  the  revelation  of  God,  he  is  also 
the  revelation  of  man.  The  perfection  of  our  hu¬ 
man  qualities  is  seen  in  him,  and  also  their  effect¬ 
iveness.  This  is  of  great  moment  in  the  shaping  of 
our  lives.  It  is  ground  into  us  by  our  semi-heathen 
education  and  the  experience  of  our  early  years 
that  there  are  certain  qualities  of  character  that  it 
is  of  the  last  importance  that  we  acquire  if  we 
are  to  get  on  in  the  world.  After  a  time  we  dis¬ 
cover  that  it  is  quite  another  set  of  qualities  that 
our  Lord  commends  to  us  and  exemplifies  in  his 
own  life.  I  suppose  that  most  of  us  go  on  believ¬ 
ing  in  the  one  set  of  qualities  and  practicing  the 
other.  The  natural  result  is  the  feeling  of  the  in¬ 
tense  unreality  of  the  qualities  that  are  commended 
in  the  Gospel.  They  belong  to  a  state  of  things 
in  which  we  do  not  live.  We  hear  about  them  in 
lessons,  read  in  church,  and  sermons  preached  in 
pulpits,  and  they  seem  to  us  to  belong  there  with 
the  other  ecclesiastical  furnishings.  We  do  not 
expect  to  meet  them  in  shops  and  offices  any  more 
than  we  expect  to  find  altars  and  pulpits  there. 
They  belong  to  the  religious  world ;  and  what  is  the 
relation  of  that  to  daily  life  we  do  not  too  carefully 


326  the  self-revelation  of  our  lord 

ask.  Our  work-a-day  world  requires  qualities  of 
another  order ;  and  we  smile  to  think  what  would 
happen  to  us  if  we  were  to  attempt  to  carry  the 
Gospel  qualities  into  that  world.  What,  of  course, 
would  happen,  is  that  we  should  be  great  Chris¬ 
tians,  whether  we  succeeded  or  failed  in  the  mar¬ 
ket-place.  And  we  take  it  altogether  too  much  for 
granted  that  we  should  fail.  I  fancy  that  we 
should  not.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  qualities  of 
our  Lord’s  human  character  spell  failure  in  ordi¬ 
nary  human  life,  because  they  are  the  perfect  hu¬ 
man  qualities.  And  there  are  enough  Christian 
men  in  the  business  world  to  justify  this  belief. 
For  the  qualities  are  not  anti-social.  They  are 
not  as  we  too  readily  assume,  the  qualities  of  a 
hermit  life.  Our  Lord  was  neither  anti-social  nor 
a  hermit.  We  should  not  only  see  a  reform  of 
business  method,  but  an  increase  of  business  ef¬ 
ficiency,  if  the  business  world  were  to  model  its 
procedure  after  the  principles  of  the  life  of  Christ. 
We  should  find,  indeed,  that  many,  if  not  all,  the 
problems  of  commercial  life,  would  be  solved  by 
the  application  of  our  Lord’s  teaching  in  every 
day  living.  Indeed,  those  many  and  insoluble 
problems  are  the  direct  outcome  of  our  not  living 
the  life  of  the  Gospel,  in  our  isolation  of  religion 
from  “practical  life.”  The  adoption  of  a  double 
standard  in  any  department  of  life  means  the  act- 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA  327 

ual  living  by  the  lower  standard.  That  is  what 
people  mean  when  they  accuse  Christians  of  hy¬ 
pocrisy.  They  know  men  of  the  highest  Chris¬ 
tian  position  whose  business  methods  are  marked 
by  utter  unscrupulousness. 

Our  Lord  is  the  end  of  our  life,  the  ideal  toward 
which  we  are  progressing  The  spiritual  life 
moves  toward  him  and  finds  its  completion  in  him. 
There  is  always  a  beyond  in  the  spiritual  life 
which  calls  and  beckons.  You  have  walked  along 
woodland  paths  sometime,  where  the  undergrowth 
shuts  you  closer  and  closer,  and  at  last  a  wall 
of  greenery  appeared  to  bring  the  path  to  an  end; 
but  at  the  last  step  a  turn  in  the  path  revealed  it¬ 
self  and  you  came  out  into  the  open  way.  So  it  is 
in  the  spiritual  life :  there  are  turnings,  not  end¬ 
ings — always  the  way  leads  farther  and  higher. 
It  seems  not  a  very  great  or  difficult  thing  when 
we  enter  upon  it,  but  it  grows  in  significance  from 
day  to  day,  revealing  ever  new  beauty  to  our 
charmed  eye.  Our  eyes  which  are  so  used  to  dark¬ 
ness  have  to  get  accustomed  gradually  to  the  light. 
God  cannot  reveal  himself  to  us  all  at  once;  we 
progress  “from  glory  to  glory.”  But  we  are  drawn 
on  by  the  vision  of  the  Uncreated  Beauty,  and 
our  souls  thirst  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  Pres¬ 
ence  of  God. 

For  that  in  us  which  is  akin  to  God  and  is  the 


328 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


medium  of  God’s  revelation  of  himself  to  us, 
seems  to  expand  and  become  capable  of  embracing 
even  more  of  the  divine  self-showing,  as  it  is  ex¬ 
ercised  by  use.  What  we  learn  of  our  Lord’s 
beauty  and  goodness  educates  the  spiritual  senses 
to  keener  vision  and  surer  touch;  and  that  which 
they  then  see  and  hold  becomes  in  its  own  the 
ground  of  a  further  advance.  Every  deepening  ex¬ 
perience  leads  us  to  ever  deeper  and  firmer  knowl¬ 
edge,  to  more  confident  power  of  interpretation. 
Things  will  never  open  to  us  the  divine  secrets; 
they  are  revealed  only  to  Lovers  who  press  on  to  the 
experience.  The  secrets  of  the  kingdom  are  hid 
from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  revealed  unto 
babes — unto  the  spiritual  children  whose  attribute 
is  love. 

“As  it  is  not  for  those  to  speak  of  the  beauti¬ 
ful  things  of  sense  who  have  never  seen  them  or 
felt  them  beautiful — men  blind  from  birth,  let  us 
suppose — in  the  same  way  those  must  be  silent 
upon  the  beauty  in  noble  pursuits  who  have  never 
taken  to  themselves  the  beauty  there  is  in  pursuits 
and  in  knowledge  and  all  this  order ;  nor  may  those 
speak  of  the  splendor  of  virtue  who  have  never 

known  the  face  of  justice . beautiful 

beyond  the  beauty  of  evening  and  of  dawn.  The 
vision  is  only  for  those  who  see  with  the  soul’s 
sight:  these,  seeing,  will  rejoice  and  all  awe  will 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA  329 

fall  upon  them  and  a  trouble  deeper  than  those 
other  things  could  give,  for  now  they  stand  before 
the  Authentic  Beauty.  This  is  the  spirit  which 
must  always  wait  upon  beauty  in  any  of  its  forms, 
wonderment  and  a  delicious  trouble,  longing  and 
love  and  an  awe  blended  with  delight.  The  emo¬ 
tions  may  be  felt  for  the  common  beauty  as  for 
the  seer  and  these  the  soul  feels  in  it,  all  souls  in 
some  sense,  but  those  the  more  deeply  that  are  the 
more  deeply  apt  to  this  nobler  love — just  as  all 
men  feel  the  love  of  beautiful  forms  of  body,  but 
all  are  not  urged  by  it  equally,  and  those  only  are 
called  lovers  who  love  the  most.” 

It  is  indisputable  that  it  is  only  that  which  is 
supremely  good  and  beautiful  that  gives  permanent 
satisfaction ;  and  there  is  a  divine  restlessness  in 
man  that  can  only  be  stilled  by  the  possession  of 
God.  “My  beloved  is  mine  and  I  am  his”  is  the 
only  state  of  rest.  It  is  true  that  the  majority  of 
men,  still  spiritually  unawakened,  as  they  are, 
pass  their  lives  in  other  pursuits;  but  even  when 
they  succeed  in  them  they  do  not  experience  satis¬ 
faction.  Men  find,  no  doubt,  a  certain  pleasure 
in  sin,  but  the  time  comes  when  the  sinner  recog¬ 
nizes  his  state  as  a  state  of  slavery.  He  has  bound 
chains  about  him  that  he  cannot  break.  The  crav¬ 
ing  appetites  call  for  satisfaction,  but  the  satisfy¬ 
ing  of  them  is  no  longer  joy —  it  is  the  compulsion 


330  THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 

of  bondage.  The  drunkard  and  the  sensualist  are 
conscious  of  a  subjection  to  appetite  which  they 
are  unable  to  escape  from  and  which  ruins  their 
life.  They  no  longer  take  up  the  day’s  dissipation 
with  the  exultant  joy  of  youth,  but  with  weariness 
and  painfulness,  as  those  upon  whom  a  dark  task¬ 
ing  is  laid.  And  is  it  not  the  same  with  the  abuses 
of  life  that  are  less  marked?  Is  there  any  habit 
of  sin  which  you  know  of,  of  which  you  do  not 
feel  that  the  Apostles’  words  are  true — “for  of 
whom  a  man  is  overcome,  of  the  same  that  he 
brought  in  bondage.”  The  sinner  becomes,  as 
someone  has  expressed  it,  “the  Laocoon  of  his  own 
serpents,”  a  most  vivid  picture  of  the  sinner  caught, 
strangled,  helpless  in  the  power  of  appetite  he  him¬ 
self  has  brought  to  strength.  This  satiety  of  sin, 
if  it  is  nothing  else,  is  the  revelation  of  its  own 
inherent  unreason,  of  its  being  a  blind  alley  in  hu¬ 
man  experience. 

On  the  contrary,  a  life  that  makes  God  its  ideal 
and  end  is  always  finding  that  new  sources  of  satis¬ 
faction  are  opening  before  it.  Its  possessions  are 
daily  increased.  Its  resources  are  not  squandered, 
but  grow  with  their  use.  We  tire  of  everything 
else — we  never  tire  of  our  Lord.  Each  new  ex¬ 
perience  of  him  reveals  ever  new  riches  in  him. 
Each  great  trial  of  his  love  and  mercy  shows  them 
inexhaustible.  The  more  we  grow  in  his  friend- 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA 


33* 


ship,  the  less  we  want  any  other  consolation  or 
support  of  joy  in  life.  He  is  Alpha  and  Omega 
to  us — our  all  in  all. 

It  is  his  work  now  to  draw  us  to  this  conception 
of  our  life,  as  a  life  whose  significance  will  be  re¬ 
vealed  when  it  attains  its  fullness  in  him.  He,  be¬ 
ing  lifted,  seeks  to  draw  all  men  unto  him.  It  is 
strange  that  believing  what  undoubtedly  we  do,  he 
should  find  in  us  so  much  resistance ;  but  the 
earthly  self  clings  to  the  things  of  earth,  and  dies 
hard — dies  harder  than  anything  else.  It  remains 
distrustful  and  worrying,  and  will  not  abandon 
all,  and  taking  his  hand  simply  to  go  out  whither¬ 
soever  he  shall  lead.  He  rightly  stressed  in  his 
earthly  life  the  virtue  of  faith  as  the  fundamental 
virtue,  showing  thereby  his  complete  comprehen¬ 
sion  of  our  nature  in  its  weakness  and  its  need. 
Our  ever-recurring  failure  is  just  there,  in  faith; 
in  that  utter  trust  and  self-committal  to  our  Lord's 
will  and  guiding  that  offers  no  opposition  to  his 
drawing.  We  break  down  again  and  again  at  the 
critical  moment  when  he  was  about  to  lead  us  on 
to  new  knowledge  of  his  love  and  care.  I  say  it 
is  a  failure  of  faith,  and  yet,  perhaps  not  altogether. 
We  may,  at  least,  say  the  failure  of  a  certain 
quality  of  faith — a  failure  of  faith’s  courage.  We 
believe  in  our  Lord  and  we  believe,  too,  that  he 
has  hitherto  led  us,  but  when  he  calls  us  to  come 


332 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


nearer,  to  launch  out  into  the  deep  and  meet  the 
unknown,  courage  fails.  We  do  not  want  to  hold 
back,  but  the  known  and  the  familiar  cling  about 
us  and  cry  out  to  us  not  to  leave  them.  There  is 
so  little  courage  in  our  following  of  our  Lord!  It 
is  pitiful  to  see  the  souls  that  cling  to  the  lower 
levels,  not  because  they  do  not  believe  the  saints' 
reports  of  the  joys  of  the  heights,  but  because  they 
simply  lack  the  courage  to  go  up.  You  have  seen 
the  child,  eager  to  follow  where  his  father  has 
gone,  over  the  rough  places,  across  the  narrow 
plank  that  bridges  the  stream  but  holding  back  in 
sheer  terror  of  the  untried,  fearing  to  trust  his 
strength.  Fearing  to  trust  our  strength — that  is 
the  trouble ;  and  forgetting  that  it  is  just  our  strength 
that  we  are  not  to  trust,  but  the  strength  of  our  Lord 
himself.  Are  you  fearful?  Are  you  fearful  that 
the  strength  will  not  hold  to  the  end  of  the  course? 
Are  you  afraid  to  leave  all  on  this  bank  and  go 
across  the  stream  to  meet  him?  Afraid  that  the 
sacrifice  which  he  will  ask  will  be  more  than  you 
can  make?  Afraid  that  you  will  lose  what  you 
most  value  if  you  yield  yourself  utterly  to  him? 

Nay,  deal  not  thus  timidly  and  grudgingly  with 
our  Lord.  Find  the  courage  to  put  yourself  wholly, 
unreservedly  in  his  hands.  He  is  your  Alpha  and 
Omega;  all  that  you  can  hope  for  or  wish  is  in 
him.  Whatever  has  permanency,  is  unvanishing. 


I  AM  ALPHA  AND  OMEGA 


333 


is  there.  Lay  up  all  your  treasures  there.  Noth¬ 
ing  is  lost  that  is  consecrated  in  him.  You  shall 
find  all  there  one  day;  all  your  hallowed  affections, 
all  your  pure  ideals  of  life,  which  you  feel  that  you 
have  only  partially  attained  here. 

There  is  so  much  that  is  only  begun  here,  which 
seems  to  die  without  bearing  any  fruit.  But  we 
shall  find  the  fruit  in  him,  ripe  and  waiting.  And 
we  shall  find  more — more  beyond  all  hope  and  all 
dreams:  for  we  shall  find  him,  the  faithful  and 
true.  “I  am  he  that  shall  be.”  What  shall  he  be 
to  us  through  all  eternity !  In  all  those  ages  when 
we  shall  see  him  face  to  face  and  know  even  as  we 
are  known!  If  we  once  gain  any  vision  of  him 
shall  we  not  think  that  all  the  discipline  of  life  is 
but  a  small  thing  so  we  may  win  Christ?  Be  you 
but  his  now,  and  he  shall  be  yours  forever.  Find 
his  love  here,  in  the  day  of  this  life,  and  it  will 
never  leave  you  or  fail  you. 

How  infinite  and  sweet,  Thou  everywhere 
And  all-abounding  Love,  Thy  service  is ! 

Thou  liest  an  ocean  round  my  world  of  care, 

My  petty  every  day;  and  fresh  and  fair 

Pour  Thy  strong  tides  through  all  my  crevices, 
Until  the  silence  ripples  into  prayer. 

That  Thy  full  glory  may  abound,  increase, 

And  so  Thy  likeness  shall  be  formed  in  me, 

I  pray;  the  answer  is  not  rest  or  peace, 


THE  SELF-REVELATION  OF  OUR  LORD 


But  charges,  duties,  wants,  anxieties, 

Till  there  seems  room  for  everything  but  Thee 
And  never  time  for  anything  but  these. 

And  I  should  fear,  but  lo !  amid  the  press, 

The  whirl  and  hum  and  pressure  of  the  day, 

I  hear  Thy  garments  sweep,  Thy  seamless  dress, 
And  close  beside  my  work  and  weariness 
Discern  Thy  gracious  form,  not  far  away, 

But  very  near,  O  Lord,  to  help  and  bless. 

The  busy  fingers  fly,  the  eyes  may  sec 
Only  the  glancing  needle  that  they  hold, 

But  all  my  life  is  blossoming  inwardly, 

And  every  breath  is  like  a  litany, 

While  through  each  labor,  like  a  thread  of  gol 
Is  woven  the  sweet  consciousness  of  Thee. 


Date  Due 


